Original subtitles

♪ Lively jazz music ♪

[Overlapping chatter]

♪♪♪

Please move backwards!

Five steps backwards for me!

[Woman] Five steps back!

♪♪♪

[Woman] All right, guys, [indistinct] Gonna be that way!

♪♪♪

[Robert] Hello!

-What's your name?

-[Issa] Issa.

-Issa!

-[Issa] Very nice to meet you.

Okay, one, two, three.

Beautiful!

[Issa] Thank you so much.

[Robert] How are you?

Take a couple!

-Take a couple! -[Woman] I got a couple.

Okay, cool.

♪♪♪

-[Robert] Good luck to you.

-Thank you.

♪♪♪

This is really important for my parents, you know.

[Robert, chuckling] Okay!

Thank you so much for all you do,

and all the education you do.

You're just making the world... you're making america and the

world better, so thank you.

[Robert] Oh, that's really nice of you.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Thank you.

♪♪♪

Would you mind signing this for me?

♪♪♪

-Thank you!

-[Chuckles]

-It's an honor meeting you.

-[Robert] Thank you.

-Hope you enjoy the shoe.

-[Man] Yeah, I will!

♪♪♪

[Man on mic] Testing, check, check.

Left channel, left channel.

Right channel, right channel, right channel.

Left channel, left channel, left channel.

Right channel, right channel...

[Robert VO] I've been a professor... a teacher... for

42 years!

[Woman] You made it!

[Laughs]

[Robert VO] I've done a lot of other things,

but I've always come back to teaching.

[Woman] Did you get the email...

Yes.

[Woman] With the syllabus and the readings?

Yes, thank you.

[Robert VO] That's been my home.

And I can't imagine not...

Doing it, to be quite honest.

[Ezra] Bob, it's great to see you.

-[Bob] Ezra, great to see you.

-[Ezra] I'm, uh...

Just kinda getting over the adrenaline rush that is the

start of the [chuckles] semester.

[Robert VO] But aging is a funny thing,

and I just began to ask myself over and over again,

"can I do...

What I love to do... and what I feel like I am called to do...

as well as I should be doing it?"

And so, tomorrow, I'm going to be beginning my last semester

as a professor.

-[Robert] So, Nicki... -[Nicki] Yes.

[Robert] Tomorrow, I will...

Probably not come in from over there.

Okay.

[Robert VO] But there's inevitably a big question Mark

in my mind.

I still feel that excitement, that buzz,

that energy.

So, how can I possibly think about retiring from teaching?

So, I will...

Do introductions, announcements...

Who I am, what this course is about,

who you are, about you...

-This is the first clicker.

-[Nicki] Okay, I'm on it.

[Robert VO] Beyond that, I deeply despise the word

"retirement."

So many people over the last couple of years have come up to

me and said, "are you still teaching?"

Or "are you retired?"

And I...

Resist the urge to punch them in the nose.

Okay, can I, um, advance the slides?

-[Nicki] Yes.

-[Clicking]

[Robert VO] I mean...

Patience wears thin...

[Chuckling] When you... when you don't have all that many

infinite number of years left.

So, how are we doing on time?

-[Nicki] 6:33.

-[Sasha] Uh, 6:30.

[Robert] Okay.

We should probably start talking about the course.

[Laughter]

I'm sure there are complications that I don't even need to know

or wanna know.

-[Sasha] It's a great group.

-Yeah.

[Sasha] It's a really great group.

Great.

Well, I'm really... I'm looking forward to meeting them

tomorrow.

Now, do we have any feel for how many are going to try to do this

remotely?

We've been trying to encourage everybody to come in person.

[Robert] Good.

Because it's just...

The essence of the live course... just like the essence of the

sections... is in the interaction,

in the liveness.

So, to the extent that we can have them in the course,

so much the better.

Yeah.

[Robert] One other thing:

You had written me... I think in the fall... about

-recruiting people to be gsis... -Okay.

[Robert] I mean, now, I don't know...

I was asked how many people know this is my last semester.

I have no idea.

Is this, a...

-Widely-understood...?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-[Robert] Okay.

It's widely understood.

We recruited people with that information,

and then, today, I also...

Sent that out, um, as a part of the "welcome back to school,

welcome to wealth and poverty" reminder to all the students.

To all the students?

Oh, so they all know?

[Laughs]

Okay.

I can read you the exact language I used.

[Robert] No, it's fine!

You don't have to do that.

-Okay.

-[Robert] I just... I've not...

Advertised it at all.

But...

You know, it's not a secret.

So it's perfectly fine.

I said, "it's professor reich's final semester of teaching."

Oh, great!

Great!

[Chuckles]

Okay.

♪ Lively jazz music ♪

[Heather] Thank you, sir.

Edwin, how are you this morning?

[Edwin] I'm good.

How are you doing today?

Great, thank you.

[Edwin] A little honey on the side, exactly how you like it,

-okay?

-Okay.

-[Edwin] Enjoy.

-[Heather] Okay, um...

-A couple items.

-[Robert] Okay.

[Heather] Did you sleep last night?

Do I look that bad?

[Heather, laughing] No, you don't look bad!

But I'm just curious if you slept.

[Robert] No, no.

Oh, that reminds me; I have a new prescription.

Anti-inflammatory.

The only potential side effect...

-Is heart attack.

-[Heather] Stop it!

[Chuckles]

[Heather, laughing] This is terrible!

-But that's... -[Heather] I don't want this

responsibility.

It's not your responsibility!

Heather, you take responsibility for all kinds of things.

Yeah, but now I know that you might take this pill walking

into your 800-person... which is gonna be a thousand people...

[Robert] Well, why is it your responsibility?

'Cause I will feel guilty when you croak 'cause I could have

stopped you from taking it!

No, you can't stop me from taking it.

This officially begins my old age.

[Heather] Oh my gosh...

[Robert] So now, in terms of the other business...

If you could take a look at that...

Tape of Arthur laffer and me?

Because...

That's another thing that would be great to develop.

The public sees no examples of people who disagree...

-[Heather] Right.

-On everything.

[Heather] Right.

But who actually like each other or get along with each other,

and are civil with each other.

You know, I do have friends who I enjoy being with who...

Are on the other side of this great divide...

who are Republicans, who are...

I mean, look at Alan Simpson.

-[Heather] Yeah.

-I love the guy.

I think...

We could do a series, and we wrap around...

You know, maybe three.

It's an important piece of education.

It's so typical for you...

To be on the precipice of retiring,

and we've started two new initiatives,

-and it's not even 8:22.

-[Robert] That's right.

[Laughs]

[Heather] This is great.

Check!

And you're doing them.

And you're doing them!

[Heather] I need to get outta here.

[Clock tower bell tolling]

♪ Energetic jazz drumming ♪

[Cacophonous chatter]

♪♪♪

[Chatter continues]

♪♪♪

[Robert] Hello!

[Sasha] Hello, good to see you!

Your announcements...

"If you have any questions related to the course,

please email Sasha..."

This is so articulate...

You're gonna give it.

-[Sasha] Okay!

[Laughs] -[Robert] Okay?

[Sasha] Sure!

[Man on mic] Students, as you come in,

please file to the center of each row.

Do not congregate in the aisles.

Step all the way in.

[Indistinct] On either side.

♪ What you want ♪

♪ baby, I got it ♪

♪ what you need ♪

♪ you know I got it ♪

♪ all I'm askin' ♪

♪ is for a little respect when you come home ♪

♪ hey, baby ♪

♪ when you get home ♪

♪ mister ♪

♪ I ain't gonna do you wrong ♪

♪ while you're gone ♪

♪ I ain't gonna do you wrong... ♪

This gets me in the mood!

♪ All I'm askin'... ♪

[Sasha on mic] Please login now.

[Indistinct] Live poll.

[Indistinct] Email me or your other head gsi Sasha.

Thank you.

♪♪♪

[Music shuts off]

[Robert] Okay, well, um...

Hello.

[Crowd] Hi!

[Cheering]

Well, I don't need that kind of hello,

but thank you for that hello!

It's so great to see all of you, and see your faces.

My name is Robert reich, this is wealth and poverty.

And...

We'll talk a lot about wealth, and we'll talk a lot about

poverty.

But, first of all, in terms of introductions, who am I?

Well, I was an economic advisor to Barack Obama.

Before that, I was secretary of labor in the Clinton

administration.

Before that, assistant to the solicitor general in the Ford

administration.

Am I getting into ancient history?

And before that, I was special assistant...

To Abraham Lincoln, as many of you...

-[Laughter] -You know that.

No, that's...

That's a bad...

A bad joke.

[Robert VO] Every class, every semester is different.

I'm reminded of that old saying that you can never step into the

same stream twice.

Well, it's something like that with regard to the course.

I've been teaching here at Berkeley for maybe 17 or 18

years.

I never expected it was gonna be that long.

[Robert VO] U Cal Berkeley is a public university.

I came here in part because of exactly that.

And before that, I was teaching at a university called Brandeis.

Before that, at a university called Harvard.

[Robert VO] There is something different about a public

university.

A third of my students are from community colleges.

A disproportionate number are first-generation students in

college.

What difference does it make?

Well, it makes a difference.

[Robert] So, this is the first question.

This is the first clicker exercise,

starting with something very easy about you.

"When I was growing up, I would say my family was:

(A) Wealthy, b) Upper middle class,

(c) Middle class, d) Working class,

(e) Low income or poor."

Go.

[Robert VO] They're highly motivated.

They are not entitled.

How can I say that in a nice way?

They don't feel anybody...

Owes them...

A college education.

[Robert] And let's end the bidding there and see...

Well, there's a big bunch of you that say "upper middle class" or

"professional," a small number say "wealthy."

But then, the rest of you are spread out...

"middle class," "working class"...

"Low income or poor."

I wanna just stress the subjectivity here.

I discovered, when I was in my 20s... not until I was in my 20s

that we actually were quite poor.

But I didn't know it because everybody around me was...

Poor.

That is, you don't know much about where you are situated

economically if everybody around you is pretty much the same.

It's only when you get a sense of relativity that you learn

more about your situation.

[Robert VO] And so, I have two goals for my students.

That first goal is I want them to think!

I want them to get into the habit of thinking hard about the

issues that we are talking about together.

I want them to question their own assumptions.

I want them to become much more critical in terms of their

thinking.

And so, we start with the question:

"What happened to the us economy beginning after the

second world war?"

And this is adjusted for inflation.

Wow!

This is an extraordinary record!

So, where did most of the economy's gains go?

The wealth held by the richest 400 Americans,

as a percentage of the total us economy.

Let's take a look.

Starting in 1980...

This is just 400.

Do you get the picture?

This is not blaming them.

Let me hasten to say, this is not about them being bad or

wrong, or doing something that is nefarious.

This is simply about what has happened.

[Robert VO] My second goal...

Is I want some of them, and expect some of them,

and hope some of them will actually...

Help the world, help improve...

What we see.

Reverse some of the troubling trends.

Now, I want to suggest to you...

That the subject of this class...

Is directly and powerfully related to the subject of

democracy,

and the quality...

And capacity of our country...

To survive.

Whether you are worried about climate change,

or you're worried about anything else...

I want to suggest to you that much of what we are going to be

talking about over the next 14 weeks

is happening now.

This is not an exercise in theory,

this is an exercise in understanding reality,

understanding a system... a political economic system...

moving through time.

It's gonna be a wild ride.

Thank you for joining me.

[Applause]

[Nicki] How'd it go, Bob?

Judging from, um, what I saw, a lot of people are bewildered.

-[Nicki] Okay.

-A lot of the students.

I've gotta run; We're gonna have... the gsis and I are

getting together.

-Thank you.

-[Sasha] Yeah, thank you.

[Robert] Great Job.

[Robert VO] There was a lot of confusion.

I think...

If I were gonna do it again, I'd cut out a lot of the graphs,

because they... they're not...

They're less, um...

They're less fascinated by the graphics stuff than I am.

[Robert VO] What they're used to is kind of absorbing data for

regurgitation on exams.

They're not used to absorbing data in terms of the...

Emotional reality of data.

This is something that's really important.

I mean, you can't reach their intellect if you don't reach

their emotions.

You can't reach their emotions unless you've reached...

You've gotta operate on both.

[Clapping] [Woman] Well done, gsis!

[Sasha] That was awesome!

-[Woman] So good!

-[Sasha] That was great.

Good!

[Sasha] The energy was really great.

[Woman] Yes.

Gspp?

[Sasha] Gspp.

All the gsis are outside.

[Woman] Perfect.

♪ Tender light jazz ♪

[Robert] I can't tell you the number of times I'm on a plane

or in a city, and somebody comes up and says,

"professor reich!"

You know, "John blah blah blah from class of...

'84!"

And I have no recollection.

But just do the math.

If I'm teaching an average of 800 to 1,000 students a year,

there are a number of students out there... quite a number.

♪♪♪

The students used to call this my museum,

because I put up on the walls stuff that I, um...

Have done over the years.

Up there is a photo of Bill Clinton's cabinet...

his first cabinet.

My first supreme court argument.

Over there is a puppet of newt gingrich.

That's when we got the first minimum wage increase in years,

through a republican-controlled congress.

I was very proud of that.

[Elliot] When did you think you knew you wanted to be a teacher?

[Robert] I knew it from the first day,

when I came into the classroom at Harvard.

It was like...

Eating a wonderful meal for the first time.

I just thought, "oh, this is so...

[Chuckles] Wonderful, and lovely,

and easy, and refreshing, and delicious!"

And I just... I fell in love with it immediately.

♪♪♪

If you asked me, emotionally, is this 40 years ago?

[Chuckling] No, it's five years ago!

I mean, I understand that that is not the person who you are

now seeing, but that's actually my self-image

part of the time now.

[Laughs]

The big surprise is not what you see in the photo,

the big surprise is what you see in the mirror!

Here is when I ran for the nomination for governor in

Massachusetts.

The Boston herald... very conservative... they couldn't

find anything else to talk about,

so they manufactured a story about short people being angry

because I was making fun of my height sometimes.

I'm gonna have to find places for all this in my garage.

Maybe I'll just have a big "going out of business" sale.

And this is my cabinet chair.

It's incredibly uncomfortable.

I mean, I never liked it.

But what are you gonna do when you have a cabinet chair?

Are you gonna throw it out?

[Chuckles]

You're not gonna put it in your living room!

So, this is the best place for it.

I don't know what happens to it when I leave this office.

♪♪♪

This is Berkeley, California.

I first came out here in the late 1960s.

It was a tumultuous decade; I remember,

you know, when I first came out here... 1968... well...

Many of us thought america...

Would never recover from...

The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy,

the cities burning as a result of riots...

And the whole country was coming apart;

it felt like we were coming apart at the seams.

And then who becomes president but Richard Nixon!

Of all people, Richard Nixon becomes president!

I mean, I went to Oxford...

That...

Fall, thinking I wasn't sure what the future of this country

was going to be.

I wasn't sure it had a future.

[Robert] Now, we have not yet talked about something.

There is a kind of social contract in the course.

And by "social contract," I mean what we owe each other...

As members of the same community in this classroom,

or community as in Berkeley, university of California,

or community as in Berkeley town,

or community as in east bay, or community as in people who

inhabit the United States,

or as human beings.

What do we owe each other?

I bring this up to you because, as we get deeper into the

course, we can't avoid these moral questions.

What is the meaning of a good, decent

society?

Since I came to...

[Robert VO] I try to be mindful of the world these students are

entering.

I was talking with some of them recently,

and I asked, "you're no longer generation z.

What do you call yourself?

What's the generation after generation z?

What are you?"

And they... several of them... said,

"we're the last generation."

The last generation?

!

What does that mean?

!

Are you so cynical?

Are you so...

Kind of laden with this sense of doom

that you think everything will end?

!

[Robert] This is another clicker question.

"Overall, when I'm being very honest with myself, i'm:

(A) Pessimistic about the future of america and the world,

although I'm optimistic about my own future,

(or b) I'm optimistic about the future of america and the world,

although I'm pessimistic about my own future,

(or c) I'm pessimistic about both."

Go.

[Robert VO] But there is this huge question hanging over these

young people today...

About whether the world will survive in anything close to the

state it now exists.

Okay, let's end the bidding.

Well, most of you say that you are pessimistic about the future

of america and the world, although you are optimistic

about your own future.

And the next largest group of you are pessimistic about both.

Pessimism is fine.

Cynicism is not.

There is a difference.

[Robert VO] Now, I think one way to help make sense of the world

has to do with inequality... widening inequality...

of income, and wealth, and political power,

and racism.

Because it's inequality...

That, in many ways, is undermining democracy,

which, in many ways, makes it difficult to do anything.

[Robert] Today, we're going to be looking at kind of a pretty

basic question:

"Should you care about widening inequality of income...

And wealth?"

And the reason I even bring this up...

Is because there are a lot of voices out there that say we

should not.

And I wanna talk to you about their arguments.

One of the best ways of learning... I have found,

in my life... is to discuss something with somebody who

disagrees with you.

Now, we have a little bit of a problem here at Berkeley in that

the consensus is very strong.

It's hard to find a lot of people who disagree with the

dominant view.

But that means that if you do have a,

quote, "minority or dissenting view,"

not only should you be respected,

but also, obviously, that discussion is the essence of

learning, for everybody.

And so, should we care?

One of the "no" reasons why we should not care about widening

inequality is that the rewards of great wealth...

Fuel entrepreneurship,

from which we all benefit.

Without inequality... or at least some inequality...

of income and wealth, there would not be enough incentive

for people to invent.

And create businesses.

And create jobs.

Secondly...

[Robert VO] Hopefully, I'm giving these students the

ability to ask the kind of questions that they need to be

asking of themselves and of the world that they're entering.

But that process is more challenging today than it was

40 years ago.

I'm looking at your faces, and I would say 20 percent of you have

no idea what I just said.

But we'll come back to that; Don't worry about it.

[Robert VO] And so, I've had classes that I don't really ever

feel come fully together.

But...

I can't force it.

♪ Light jazz music ♪

[Woman] A lot of my students, they've...

Noticed that pattern of you not wanting to share your own

opinion.

So I just thought it was interesting that,

even though they know where you stand,

they kind of just want you to say it to their faces,

-and... -[Laughter]

I... yeah.

A lot of my students have said similar things in their

mid-semester feedback of "can you give us the answers after

the polls?"

And he purposefully doesn't do that.

Like, the way the slides are structured is that there's a

graph after the poll or something like that,

and so you get the students critically thinking about the

material, and what the question is,

and what the answer might be, given this information that Bob

is presenting.

And so, what I've tried to tell my students is "try to think

about why he's not giving you the answers."

[Chuckles] Does that make sense?

[Woman] That's very helpful.

And, again, it's not as if there's the right answer.

There's informed...

Thoughtful...

Opinions, based upon data...

And analysis.

That's all there is.

I don't want them to carry around my opinions;

that's.. [Chuckles]

Who cares what my opinion is?

!

It's not that there are no facts;

there are facts.

But they want more than facts, they want...

"What should we think?"

[Chuckles]

And that's different than the facts.

[Woman] Yeah, I got that from some of my students,

'cause they're so used to this, like,

"we all sit in the front and look at the teacher,

and then the teacher tells us what to think,

and then deposits some information,"

and we're doing a lot more interaction than I think they're

used to.

Sometimes I even have them just sit in a circle,

because...

Whenever they're responding in discussion,

they're looking at me, and I'm like,

"I want you to look at each other,

and talk to each other.

You're not saying this to me, and I'm also not responding to

what you're saying, your classmates are."

So that has helped to disrupt this...

Teacher-student deposit information vibe that happens.

[Robert] It's an important point.

We have to all keep telling ourselves,

"they will learn much more...

Through engaging their curiosity,

not giving them our opinions."

And we've talked about this before,

but it's really important to protect the dissident voices.

And...

Not just protect them, but encourage them,

and continue to keep them all off balance,

which is what we're doing.

♪ Lively jazz music ♪

So, I wanna play a game.

Every one of you,

just look to the person to your right or to your left.

The person on my left is person a,

and the person on my right is person b.

Person a is going to get, figuratively,

1,000 dollars from me.

Figuratively.

I offer 1,000 dollars to a,

and a offers a portion to b...

And writes it down in complete silence.

And my 1,000-dollars offer goes through only if b accepts.

In other words, it's conditional.

B must accept the deal,

or neither of you gets a penny.

[Laughter]

Does it make sense to you?

You understand?

Not complicated.

When you're done, put up your hands.

[Chatter]

[Robert] Shh!

Okay, person a,

I wanna know how much you offered person b.

So, again, this is only to be answered by as.

Go.

Okay, let's end the bidding there,

and let's take a look and see...

Majority... vast majority of you were between 10 and 500,

a few of you offered more than 500,

and we've got 15 of you who offered between one and nine

-dollars... -[Laughter]

And we've got 11 of you who offered zero.

Now, I would like to talk to somebody who offered

between one dollar and nine dollars.

Okay.

-What's your name?

-Henry.

-Henry.

-[Robert] Henry.

Henry, how much did you offer b?

-A dollar.

-[Robert] A dollar.

[Laughter]

-Did you accept the dollar?

-[Sam] I did not.

-[Robert] You did not.

-[Laughter]

[Robert] Henry, do you realize you've just forfeited a lot of

money?

Did you expect that...

Your name?

-[Sam] Sam.

-Graham.

Did you expect that Graham would agree?

Hoped.

[Robert] You hoped he would.

[Laughter]

The reason I'm asking is we are engaged in a little bit of an

experiment about fairness.

We all carry around, in our heads,

some notion of what is...

Quote-unquote "fair."

And as we diagnose what has happened to the economy,

what has happened to inequality, why we're concerned about

inequality, if we are...

Our notions of fairness or lack of fairness

become profoundly important.

All right, let me ask a different question.

Those of you who were on the receiving end.

Is there anybody who...

[Robert VO] In the classroom itself,

there's a joy, and a confusion... simultaneously.

And, in a way, there's some chaos.

But, in a metaphorical way, that chaos is fine.

The world is chaotic.

The material has a chaotic quality to it.

And so, the students, they've got to make sense out of it.

But we are now already halfway through this semester,

and so I've decided not to try to go through as much material

each week,

either in my lecture or in the sections.

I'm trying to be a little bit less ambitious,

because I want the students to have a...

A better shot at understanding everything that is being

presented.

[Robert] Workers' rights.

I was secretary of labor, I got very close to this.

[Robert VO] But these are not simple issues.

You know, globalization, globalization,

globalization, globalization.

I mean, rarely has a word gone so directly...

From obscurity to meaninglessness...

Without any intervening period of coherence.

You know, there are certain words,

I have found, that are guaranteed to make people either

anxious or bored.

The earned-income tax credit.

Generational wealth transfer.

The affordable care act.

Nafta, the north American free trade act.

The national labor relations act of 19...

35.

♪ Lively funky music ♪

Stakeholder capitalism.

Shareholder capitalism.

Surveillance capitalism.

The securities and exchange commission!

The supreme court.

Texas department of community affairs.

Us gross domestic product.

Economies of scale.

♪♪♪

Economic downturn.

Corporate spending.

Symbolic analytic work, which we'll get to in a moment.

I'll describe it in more detail.

[Robert VO] When I'm teaching, I watch their faces;

I am constantly scanning.

And my challenge, as a teacher, is to make it alive,

to make it relevant, to make it exciting,

to...

Avoid, you know, sort of the dead-eye,

eyes glazed over.

I'm mixing it up a little bit, in terms of students...

Asking them directly some questions.

Who voted against this?

Why?

[Woman] I want my piece of the pie.

[Robert] Wait a minute, you want your piece of the pie,

so you're willing to sacrifice the middle and everybody at the

top?

!

All right, I'll give you a better deal.

[Woman] Eat the rich!

[Laughter]

Sometimes, I am the devil's advocate.

Sometimes, I play act, essentially.

When I put on these glasses...

I'm not me.

I'm...

The person known as hacksaw Bob.

[Laughter]

[Robert VO] Obviously, students need the quantitative and

qualitative data, but they also need to be able to see the

larger picture.

You're concerned about the harshness of this plan.

[Woman] Because there's some unfair labor practices involved?

[Mockingly] "Unfair labor practices."

Oh, Dee-da Dee-da.

We're going to...

[Robert VO] This year, everything is maybe a little bit

more profound.

I mean, it sounds odd and it sounds ridiculous,

but I really feel like I'm holding them...

intellectually and emotionally.

I have my arms around them, and I don't know why.

It may be subconsciously because I feel like...

I already miss them.

[Soft clanking]

[Sets cup on table]

[Marker on paper]

Drawing helps me think.

It's another way of...

Processing information.

As a kid, because I was always very short for my age,

I was bullied in school.

And so, coming home, I would just sit there at my little

desk...

And draw.

As I've grown up, I've realized that this is kind of therapeutic

for me.

If there are enough people...

Who feel bullied.

They...

Begin to have power.

[Elliot] Is that what you're drawing here?

[Robert] Yeah, almost unconsciously,

[laughing] That's what I'm drawing.

And so, I don't really think analytically about what i'm

drawing.

It comes from a very different...

Place in my mind,

but it bubbles up from what I'm worrying about,

or thinking about, or angry about,

or outraged about.

♪ Pensive jazz music ♪

I think there's so much distrust in

the air we breathe and the culture we inhabit.

50 years, 100 years from now, looking back on this era we are

in, it may be the historians say,

"power and money... the lust for both...

pulled society apart.

There was just too much... too much temptation,

too much power, too much money."

Maybe, sometimes I think that that's the problem.

♪♪♪

But the larger question I ponder a lot is:

"Who are the teachers today?

Who are the teachers of society?

Of america?

Of the world?

Who is conveying the lessons?

Who is making sense... or trying to make sense...

of the common experiences?

Are there people around who are interpreting what we have

learned?"

I'm not sure there are.

And that worries me.

I really do feel that, with any challenge we face,

if people understand it... [chuckles]

We have a very good chance of dealing with it,

coping with it, rising to the occasion.

But if there's a cacophony of contradictory voices...

some of whom are...

Intentionally doing the opposite of teaching,

giving...

Lies, misinformation, misleading people...

how...

How can the country learn?

♪♪♪

[Bird caws]

But I do have a sense of the future.

One of the last stages of life, Erik Erikson,

the psychologist, calls it the "generative stage,"

where you are giving of yourself.

You're no longer worried about your career,

you're no longer trying to build this,

you're no longer...

You're now purely trying to leave...

People with something, not so that they remember you,

but so that they can have something of you,

by you, from you.

And, at its best, teaching is all about...

Giving.

And if you are lucky, as I am, the students take it,

and they run with it.

So you're not letting go, you're launching.

This is called a "mess," in academic terms.

There is more junk...

Accumulated in this office.

[Humming softly]

This is my last week of teaching.

They tell me I've gotta get out of here;

the cleaners are coming.

Now, in my 17 years here, they've never had cleaners.

"The cleaners are coming!"

You know, it's like...

They will have to disinfect the room?

I'm trying to put these little tabs...

On things that I would like to save.

This is just memories!

And you can't just throw them out.

It's like putting a pet down or saying goodbye to an old friend;

you don't wanna do that.

Ch-ch-ch-ch...

On the other hand, there must be 300 books here.

I can't possibly take this; There's no place;

I have no room!

I called the white house this morning... the switchboard.

I said, "I have a cabinet chair I'd like to return."

She said, "you wanna talk to somebody in the cabinet?"

I said, "no, I was in the cabinet.

I wanna return a cabinet chair."

"You wanna recycle something?"

They didn't understand.

I can't sell it on eBay; That would just be undignified.

And so, I guess the white house doesn't have a answer for

somebody who wants to return a cabinet chair.

Disinfecting.

You know, it's like I have a...

It's like I've infected this place by just being here for...

Lord knows how many years.

On the other hand, there's a lot of good feeling.

You know, this is closing a chapter;

I don't regard this as...

As the end.

This evening, there is a party.

I don't know anything about the party,

I just know that I've been invited to a party in honor of

me, whatever that means.

I had requested that my former teaching assistants be invited.

And, um...

I don't know how I'm gonna feel.

♪ Band playing smooth funky music ♪

[Man] Yes, yes, yes!

Thank you.

[Chatter]

-Hello, krista.

-[Krista] Hello.

It's great seeing you.

-Thank you for coming.

-Lovely to see you.

Thank you.

Turn this way?

Thank you.

[Robert VO] 42 years ago, when I started,

I walked into my first classroom,

and, at some level of my subconsciousness,

I knew that this was my calling.

This is my...

One of my first teaching assistants.

Oh, wow!

-[Laughter] -Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

[Robert VO] It sounds a little bit silly for me to say,

as I think about saying it, but 42 years doesn't feel that long.

[Robert] You were my student...

At the Kennedy school.

[Man] Your last semester there!

My last semester there.

We graduated 10 years ago, can you believe it?

-[Robert] 10 years ago?

-Yeah.

So that was in 20...

What was it?

-[Man] 1992.

-'92.

-[Man] When you left, yeah.

-When I left.

[Man] [Indistinct].

Several of my students from the Kennedy school from the '90s and

-'80s are here.

-[Woman] Oh, my god!

[Laughs]

[Robert] I mean, talk about heavy.

[Woman laughs]

[Robert VO] I think some of us are fortunate enough...

To be doing things that feel right in a very, very

profound way.

And so, I'm retiring from teaching,

but I will continue... as long as I'm able...

to be an educator.

[Man] Oh, this is great!

Now hold that!

Yes!

[Robert VO] This is not "poor me,

I'm ending my teaching career."

I'm not gonna sit on a front porch and collect social

security!

Teaching... regardless of whether it's a big enterprise in

the classroom,

or anything else I do after I end my teaching career...

it's the same fundamental process:

One is engaged in...

Thinking with others.

A good teacher...

Instills both curiosity...

And critical thinking.

And this is the connection to democracy.

[Robert] "The arc of the moral universe is long,

but it bends toward justice."

That's what Martin Luther King Jr. told us.

It's not that simple.

[Laughter]

As I think I've shared with many of you,

my introduction to much of what we've been talking about this

semester happened when I was a freshman in college,

and one of the young men

who had been my protector when I was about eight years old...

although I had lost track of him for years...

I discovered that he had been registering voters

in Mississippi...

In 1964.

And the ku klux klan...

And the sheriff of neshoba county, Mississippi...

Didn't want black people registered to vote.

And so, my protector when I was a much younger kid,

Michael schwerner...

along with two other civil rights workers...

they were...

Tortured and murdered.

And when I found out that the person who had protected me

from the bullies...

Had been...

Killed by the real bullies,

it changed my life,

because I...

I began to see bullying...

All around.

Economic bullying...

Racial bullying, ethnic bullying,

the bullying...

Of anybody who's different, who's other,

who doesn't have the power.

But these movements... the movement against racism...

[Robert VO] Over the years, I've learned democracy requires

engagement.

It requires participation.

If we take the idea of self-government seriously...

It is about taking responsibility.

Taking responsibility for what you believe,

your views, your...

Citizenship.

And that is what teaching is all about,

what learning is all about: It's taking responsibility.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Learning is not a spectator sport.

It's active!

[Robert] The thing that's so important to understand is that

these fights don't end.

There is no point where you can relax and say,

"oh, yes!

The gap between our ideal and reality has already been

overcome."

And so, to make changes... to make the world better...

we need leadership!

But let me be very clear, because I have spent...

Over 60 years...

With people who were leaders... some of them formal leaders,

some of them informal leaders...

they were not born that way.

There is not a leadership gene.

There are not natural-born leaders.

Leadership comes from...

Somewhere else.

[Robert VO] In my formal education,

I was blessed.

I went to a tiny public grade school and high school,

and many of my teachers were very, very dedicated.

They were curious, and funny, and...

Thoughtful.

And they gave everything of themselves.

[Robert] And then, there's also the leadership myth that you

have to have formal authority.

You've got to be a president, or you've got to be a member of

congress, or whatever drapes you in authority.

Well...

Stop right there.

Some of the most...

Important leaders in world history...

Have had no formal authority at all.

Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind immediately.

Martin Luther King...

[Robert VO] When I think back, I was a very insecure,

quiet, intimidated...

Little boy.

And some of those teachers...

Reassured me that I was...

Not a freak,

that despite my height and despite my...

You know, being...

A klutz in sports,

that I was not wrong,

or weird.

They enabled me to accept myself.

[Robert] The purpose of this class...

Is to both face the reality that we have been talking about

this semester...

the realities of widening inequality of income...

And wealth.

But do it in a way that reality needs to be faced...

that is, not with great fear, not with negativism,

not with a sense of defeatism...

But, really, with a sense of optimism,

inspiration,

commitment.

And so, I want you to remember:

A true leader helps people overcome

cynicism,

and do the hard work

of making positive social change.

And so, as I've suggested to you this semester,

hopefully at least some of you...

Are going to devote some of your attention...

And some of your time...

And some of your life...

To making...

The world better.

I believe in your capacities.

I believe in your commitment.

I believe in you.

[Robert VO] Tomorrow is my last class.

But, let's face it:

A teacher only has a certain amount of time with students,

and then, they go.

And so, tomorrow, at the end of class,

there will be...

These guys,

who will leave,

go on with their lives.

[Elliot] When we first started talking to you on the Eve of the

first class, and now, here we are at the final one,

do you have a sense as far as thinking about tomorrow?

♪ Tender light jazz ♪

I had my regular doctor's appointment last week and I...

My doctor is...

Young, and she's not that much older than many of my graduate

students, my teaching assistants.

And, at the end of the appointment,

she, um... she looked at me and she said,

"is everything fine?

Everything good in your life?

Everything..." [chuckles]

And I...

And I said, "yes, i'm... I'm retiring!

In fact, this is my last week."

And she said, uh, "well, congratulations!

How does it feel?"

I just...

I started crying.

I was embarrassed.

[Laughs] I mean...

Poor...

Young woman, she didn't know what to do.

I mean, she...

She was very kind.

She put her hand on my arm and she said,

"I understand."

Well, she didn't understand; She's only,

you know, 34 years old.

♪♪♪

Quite honestly, the feelings about retiring... about no

longer teaching, about no longer having my students,

my classes... are closely aligned...

To feelings that come with being...

An older person.

Unlike the first 10 or 20 or 30 years of your life,

where it's all gain... or, if you're lucky,

you're just... you're growing...

the last 10 or 20 years are about...

Accommodating what is obviously an ending.

And so, retiring from teaching... ending my teaching career

that has been so critically...

Important to me, a calling for me...

Is a real loss.

♪♪♪

-[Nicki] How are you feeling?

-[Robert] Good!

Yeah?

[Robert, chuckling] You look worried.

No, it's just your last one!

[Robert] I know...

Do you need anything?

[Sasha] For you, Bob.

The final donning of...

-The final... -[Sasha] Your speaker.

Good afternoon, wealth and poverty!

This is our final class; You've made it!

Congratulations!

Woo!

This is great opportunity to move into the middle of your

row.

♪ Come ♪

♪ and talk about the things we did today ♪

♪ here ♪

♪ and laugh about our funny little ways ♪

♪ while we have a few minutes to breathe ♪

♪ then I know that it's time you must leave... ♪

[Robert VO] You know, as I think about my students,

they are in transition...

most of them 21, 22 years old.

Do you remember how you felt at the age of 21, 22?

[Chuckling] I mean...

♪♪♪

For them, it's not ending, it's beginning,

and this is the connection, really,

between teachers and students.

It's about the passage of time,

and, at a deeper level,

the arc of one's life.

♪ And I see that the time spent confused ♪

♪ was the time that I'd spent without you ♪

♪ and I feel myself in bloom ♪

♪ so, darling, be home soon ♪

♪ I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled ♪

♪ my darling, be home soon ♪

♪ it's not just these few hours ♪

♪ but I've been waiting since I toddled ♪

♪ for the great relief of having you to talk to ♪

[Cheers and applause]

♪♪♪

♪ So, darling ♪

♪ my darling, be home soon ♪

♪ I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled ♪

♪ my darling, be home soon ♪

♪ it's not just these few hours ♪

♪ but I've been waiting since I toddled ♪

♪ for the great relief of having you... ♪

[Elliot] Bob, it's okay if we film you doing this?

[Robert] Of course!

I've, uh, been filmed a few times before.

[Man VO] From CBS news Washington...

A spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview

on face the nation.

With Robert reich, who teaches business and public policy at

Harvard university's John F. Kennedy school of government.

Joining us now, live in our Boston bureau,

is Robert reich.

[Woman] From Boston, Robert reich.

[Man] Professor Robert reich, the Harvard economist.

Robert reich, whose book, 'the next American frontier, '

has engaged the attention of a number of democrats looking for

interesting things to say.

The question you have to ask is what the rules of the game

ought to be.

We are now facing a circumstance in which the old ways of doing

things simply will not maintain our standard of living,

and the choice before us, I think, is very stark.

♪ Lively funky music ♪

[Robert VO] Good morning!

It's a new day, a new year, and a new future!

Here we are in 1989.

I'm talking about issues and concerns that most Americans

have:

The quality of education, the quality of the environment,

rebuilding the infrastructure...

[Larry VO] In steps secretary of labor Robert reich.

The plan revealed by the president when he addresses

congress next Wednesday will have this man's fingerprints all

over it.

This plan gets control over that budget deficit.

Becoming lean and mean, getting down to the bone.

Investing in the future, with regard to education and training

and infrastructure.

Roads, Bridges, all the things that American business needs.

Everybody in Washington is a little bit itchy because

Washington doesn't like change, but the public out there seems

to be very happy, indeed.

♪♪♪

People talk about government being too...

-Too big.

-[Jay] Mm-hm.

I ask you:

Do I look like big government?

[Laughter and applause]

Is this big government?

You will hear members of congress talk about making

government smaller, and more efficient.

I defy anybody... anybody... to find a smaller and more

efficient labor secretary than me.

[Laughter and applause]

In the interest of full disclosure,

I am not taller than Cheryl tiegs.

[Laughter]

[Laughing] Ah, the secret!

I keep telling him he should be a male model.

[Laughter]

♪♪♪

[Robert VO] The economy is good.

The one unfinished agenda is the very, very

wide inequality we have in this country.

A widening gap between the rich and poor.

A wide Gulf between people at the top and everybody else.

Rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.

The wage issue is something this whole society

has got to focus on.

My friends, we are on the way to becoming

a two-tiered society,

composed of a few winners,

and a larger group of Americans left behind,

whose anger and whose disillusionment

is easily manipulated.

♪♪♪

[Robert VO] I'm former labor secretary Robert reich,

filling in for Bill O'Reilly, who's on vacation.

But never fear, factor fans!

I have the same ideology as Bill O'Reilly.

Bill will be back on Monday!

You know, I do television once or twice a week.

The problem with television is I'm usually on these yelling

shows.

I mean, I just yell, and somebody yells back at me.

[Overlapping yelling]

-You're being hypocritical!

-Wait, let me...

Let me be the first person to finish a sentence on the history

of this program.

All right?

!

♪♪♪

[Man VO] This summer, conan o'brien

and former secretary of labor Robert reich...

Are...

Detective conan o'brien...

And detective former secretary of labor Robert reich!

Okay, now how do I stand, like this?

Well, like this, and we just march down the street together.

I feel... I feel as if I'm one of you.

[Man] Empowered!

I'm now one of the gang.

Factories closed!

Unemployment will spike!

Here to explain it is Robert b. Reich!

Rampant corporate greed, wall street malfeasance,

and the rises of short-sighted politics all contributed to

increased economic inequality!

[Blast]

[Man VO] They've got 24 hours to clean up the city!

[Laughter]

I just took out the trash.

♪♪♪

[Robert VO] A true leader...

Is always trying to empower other people to be ethically

responsible and self-aware.

Not just follow,

but to be ethically responsible and self-aware.

Empowerment means to take responsibility.

♪♪♪

[Ambient sidewalk sounds]

-[Woman] Hi, professor reich!

-How are you?

!

[Woman] I watched your series on YouTube!

-Oh, I'm so glad!

-[Woman] Really good!

[Woman] Bye, professor!

Thank you!

Thanks very much!

-[Woman] You have a great day!

-You too!

[Woman] I hope retirement is great!

Thank you!

I hope you have a good life!

[Woman] Thank you!

[Brandon] Does that just happen everywhere you go?

Yeah.

Yeah!