As economist Paul Gregory has noted in his Forbes article, "Reich's lamentable disregard for facts and his lack of knowledge of basic economics," has earned him and his theories an "F." Having spent enough time in academia and years at one of the top business schools in the country, I couldn't agree more with the numerous reviews and critiques on Reich's "Saving Capitalism." For those like me that have had the unfortunate opportunity of reading "Saving Capitalism," and seeing the "documentary," (quoted because it is more a lengthy advertisement for the implementation of a social welfare state and a forced societal and cultural paradigm shift built on a strong-armed redistribution of wealth), it is difficult to adequately cover how wrong Reich is nearly every step of the way, starting with his book's initial false assertion in which the rest of his arguments are reliant on. He complains about every debate he is in devolving into a debate about whether the free market or the government does a better job (completely ignoring that classical liberals, libertarians, free market economists, and conservatives alike, would all agree that for the government to create property rights, control monopoly, and enforce contracts are precisely things they would list as justified duties of the government. He relies on some perverted assumption that all of his opponents believe the government serves no purpose, has no right "setting the rules," is mutually exclusive of a free-market, and is always wrong and/or bad. Instead, they'd likely argue that it isn't their "making and enforcing" the rules that is the problem, but their tendency to also insert themselves as players or actors "in the game," in which they are "making and enforcing" the rules).
Overall, without writing a full essay, the best I can suggest is to take everything with a (huge) grain of salt if you are going to watch or read the book, especially if you are not, like most people (understandably), educated in economics, political science, or a related field. It's easy to hear agreeable things, like eliminating poverty, backed by nice buzz words, like 'wealth redistribution," and agree with everything else - it's why propaganda is so effective. So I urge everyone to at least do themselves a favor, and read multiple (academic/scholarly, or at least by an economist) book reviews and/or critiques of Reich as supplemental material to understand why it is that economists and professionals don't take Reich too seriously, and more importantly, why the ideas presented are downright dangerous
Overall, without writing a full essay, the best I can suggest is to take everything with a (huge) grain of salt if you are going to watch or read the book, especially if you are not, like most people (understandably), educated in economics, political science, or a related field. It's easy to hear agreeable things, like eliminating poverty, backed by nice buzz words, like 'wealth redistribution," and agree with everything else - it's why propaganda is so effective. So I urge everyone to at least do themselves a favor, and read multiple (academic/scholarly, or at least by an economist) book reviews and/or critiques of Reich as supplemental material to understand why it is that economists and professionals don't take Reich too seriously, and more importantly, why the ideas presented are downright dangerous