Inequality for All is narrated by Robert Reich who was a former U.S. Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton and is an established economist author. This documentary acts as more of an agenda on how to correct the economy rather than observation on the economy like our other texts. The urgency of the documentary is due to how historical patterns have allowed us to predict the country’s current widening economic gap and yet nothing has been done. In the 1970s, wages flattened due to stock markets profiting off less worker wages and the prevention of work unions. In the current market, the rich are being taxed less than the middle class and millionaire lobbyists are infesting our political system and undermining our democracy. A commonality between the stock markets in the 1970s and the unequal tax treatment today are that the markets are catering towards profits for big corporations rather than the well-being of the average worker. A commonality between the union prevention in the 1970s and the millionaire lobbyists are that when the little people want to speak against the market, they are being silenced.

How the Question has Shifted in Morality Within the Markets

In the past, the question between morality and markets was focused on whether markets are inherently bad and create bad people, or if bad people just happen to be present in good markets. Therefore, many economists like Mandeville, Montesquieu, and Smith came out with texts explaining why markets are good and why man created markets. Today, the understanding of markets is that they are good entities and are naturally created systems that are the effects of civilizations. It is understood that America’s market today is doing better economically than it ever has, but that the average American worker is doing worse today than in the past. This is what today’s morality issue is centered on.

Wealth Status Has Regressed Our Markets

Reich uses the idea that when the rich call themselves “job creators,” it is used in their means of status and power. But the real job creators are the “middle class.” It is said in the documentary that the rich are spending too little. I question whether this issue of hoarding wealth comes from an individual’s increasing need to showcase their status and power in today’s society. By hoarding wealth, it retains one’s title of millionaire or billionaire. This has harmed our economy to be more stagnant and with less money being spent, prices must rise which ultimately harms the average American. This issue was not present before in the natural world and natural man. But as civilization got more developed and civilized man became more aware of his social status rather than his natural status, it seems that Smith could have predicted this using his concepts from The Theory of Moral Sentiment.

Technology is More a Virtue Rather Than a Vice to the Market

The documentary attributes a factor to the economy’s widening gap to technology and that it has negatively affected the market. The documentary describes the innovation of technology and robots as a problem not because they are taking our jobs, but that they have reduced their pay for example, a cashier being replaced by an automatic checker. Yes, technology has reduced one’s pay. But has the individual’s effort while working also been reduced in relation to their pay? For someone being a cashier in the 1900s, the cash register machine would be a lot harder to manage than an iPad in today’s local mom and pop business. I believe there is a counter argument to emphasize that technology has done more good than bad to our markets. The argument could be made that technology has made us dumber with us not being able to use a cash register from the 1900s but able to use an iPad today. However, a cashier’s mind is free from not having to worry about using a complicated 1900s cash register machine, and instead are able to focus more on other tasks during the job such as the customer service experience which is what sticks in a customer’s mind more than whether the cashier counted their change right. Antiquated ways of performing tasks and responsibilities should not be saved just because that is what we are used to. Technology, like the market, will always evolve and workers must be able to adjust to it.

Opinions on the Market Shift Accordingly to Opinions on Other Movements

Historically, changes like globalization and government intervention were looked down upon because they were seen as corrupting the market when globalization and government intervention were increasing influences that happened all around the world outside of the markets. I think that we shouldn’t try to understand the morality and shifted opinions on markets within the market itself, but rather look at the entire ecosystem that surrounds the markets and then determine from there, what can we change in the market.

It is seen as a pattern that when some new concept is introduced to the market such as globalization or government intervention, it receives the same criticism or praise at that concept outside of the market. I don’t believe that people didn’t like government intervention in the market, but rather people didn’t like government intervention at all. The Wealth of Nations was created in 1776, the same year that America was founded. The people that were reading the Wealth of Nations were Americans, and of course, Americans immediately subscribed to the idea that the government should stay out of the market because they had just abandoned England to establish their own country.

The documentary was created in 2013. 2013 was the year the iphone5s came out, where touch ID was first introduced and sparked major controversy with if it was morally decent for Apple to have fingerprint data of its users. As smart phones became more necessities rather than luxuries, consumers feared for their data privacy more and trusted their phones less. From this Quartz article, the title reads, “2013 was a lost year for tech.” The article mentions the fear that robots from Silicon Valley would take our jobs with the creation of “robot barista,” intensifying the separation between honest American worker from strange animatronics serving you your daily coffee. Society’s opinion on the market fluctuates with other influences such as social justice, the government, and now technology.

An instance of social justice affecting the economy is when the documentary points out that there is a “correlation between political polarization on the one hand and widening economic inequality.” This documentary was created in 2013, the same year that the BLM movement was founded, or at least the digital movement #BlackLivesMatter. The name calling and ingroup-outgroup mentality from BLM must have leaked into the market where the terms communist and socialist became an insulting label rather than just economic beliefs. And the repercussions of this hate went to labeling minorities as the scapegoats to financial corruption, intensifying the BLM movement which went full circle.

When America rebuilds other third world countries around them, it creates for a better economy for themselves in the long run. This is a point that is strengthened by Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations where he explains that a country not taking goods from other countries is ultimately going to fall behind because like how “no man is an island,” no country is an island. The documentary uses this point to persuade viewers that this widening gap doesn’t only affect the poor, but the middle and upper class as well. This is an instance when the same self-interest that used to drive the economy can now instead drive economy improvement. There is a thin line between greed and self-interest that allows the economy to succeed rather than fail. The line is distinguished by if an individual is willing to risk others’ well beings for the sake of their own.