Robert Reich: Welcome to you!
And I want to introduce you to these wonderful, wonderful, fabulous students.
This is the University of California, Berkeley.
These are the best students ever, alright.
[Cheers] And, and, not incidentally, this is the best university ever.
The best, the best.
It is.
It's true.
[Applause] No, wait a minute.
I'm not fooling around.
Later on in the term, we're actually going to be looking at public universities, and
the University California, Berkeley, is the best public university, I would say some data
show, in the world.
So you are in the best public university.
And public universities for reasons that will get into later on with you and also with you
are really extraordinarily important in terms of upward mobility, in terms of many of the
values that we are talking about in this class.
So, in any event, I want to introduce you to them.
And, then you all, I want to introduce you all to people who are going to be viewing
this.
So, you know, you can wave or not.
Alright, so here is what we are going to do.
We are going to be looking at people's values with regard to the distribution of wealth.
And what I would like to do, and I'm going to do it in a moment here, is to show you
a chart and actually have you vote, have you vote, and you, you who are watching, you can
vote too.
Which of these distributions of wealth would you prefer?
I'm going to show here two distributions of wealth.
They are going to be in a bar graph.
And you, we're going to figure out some way of getting you to see this bar graph, alright.
These bar graphs came from some professors who did some survey work a few years ago.
If I've got the name right, I think it's Michael Norton at Harvard Business School and his
associates.
They did extensive surveys and they looked at, for example, I want to show you up here.
This is one possible distribution.
This is, let's call it, distribution A of wealth.
And what I you who are watching this, and what I want all of you who are watching this,
is this is the -- the blue represents the top 20% of people, that is the richest 20%
of people, and under this distribution, the richest 20% of people get more than half of
all the wealth.
And the next 20% get about 20% of all of the wealth, and the next middle 20% of people
get about 10% of the wealth, and the next 20% of people get this percentage of the wealth.
So this bar in terms of this particular choice represents total wealth in the United States,
and this is how it's divided up, according to this chart, alright.
Now, I'm going to give you and all of you who are watching this another option.
And this is, let's call this number B, the B option.
And this is how we're going to divide up: this is the top 20% takes a smaller percentage,
and the middle and the second 20% and so on.
So in just a moment, I'm going to ask you to tell me, and tell each other, and tell
all of you -- and you can do this too, you can do this too -- what you chose with regard
to A or B in terms of the ideal distribution, not what the distribution is, but what you
think the ideal distribution should be.
Are you ready, okay?
So, on your clickers.
Oh, before, I should explain to you, they all have these little clickers.
You want to hold up your clickers?Just hold up, okay?
Do you see the clickers, alright?These clickers, these clickers, allow people to describe exactly
what their choices are anonymously, okay.
So it's a pretty good indicator of at least what a group, and this is fairly large group.
By the way, I should say, this is not the typical size of a Berkeley class.
For any of you who are thinking about coming to Berkeley or any of you who have kids or
grandkids, this is large, this is large.
But we divide up into sections and we have a great time, alright.
Okay, so on the count of three why don't you choose which of these you prefer, 1, 2, 3,
choose.
Okay, and uh.
You've already chosen.
Let's stop the choosing and let's actually see how many of you prefer, what percentage
of you prefer A and what percentage of you prefer B. Well, 86% of you prefer B and 13%
of you prefer A. Well, this is Berkeley.
Now, you can do the same thing.
And what we are going to be interested in is how you choose as well.
Now, you and everybody like you, you are not completely random.
I mean, you have decided to join us.
So there is some self-selection bias there.
But it is interesting.
You'll be able to compare yourself to Berkeley.
By the way, just to do a slightly different variation on this.
I'd like you now, taking the same, let's get rid of this particular poll, taking the same
two possibilities, the same two graphs.
Tell me what you think most Americans choose in terms of A or B on the ideal distribution
of wealth.
What do you think most Americans choose.
So let's start right now.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, we'll go about ten.
You can choose, you can get involved in the same thing.
Okay, let's end the bidding right here and let's see what you think.
So, more of you think that people will choose A, but a substantial number of you think that
most Americans would choose B. Well, we'll find out a little bit from this experiment
because you'll decide, right.
Let's see.
I will show you know in the next graph what most Americans actually choose.
You're absolutely right.
Most Americans choose exactly like what you choose.
Now, again, there are a lot of you who thought that most Americans would choose A, but actually
they chose B. And you keep that in mind as well.
So this is the ideal for most Americans, and this is a widespread survey.
Michael Norton and his associates did this survey a numbers of, this was about 2011.
So, it's just sort of interesting.
Now what we are going to do now is I'm going to show you, and I'm going to show you, what
the actual distribution of wealth is.
People think the actually distribution of wealth is A, but no I'm going to show you
what the actual distribution of wealth is, the real distribution.
Now, for those of you who are watching this and following along, the actual distribution,
the real distribution is very far removed from either what people might assume other
assume the distribution of wealth is or what their own ideals are.
In other words, this is way off, this is way skewed.
The top 20% has a huge percentage of total wealth.
And, you know, the bottom 20% and even the fourth quintile almost doesn't show up at
all on here.
Now, why did I do this experiment with you, and with you?
Because there is in terms of this gap between the ideal and the reality a huge, huge cognitive
dissonance.
When I say cognitive dissonance what I'm talking about is when you find out that this is the
real distribution and you've just gone through an exercise and you are actually talking about
what your ideal distribution of wealth is, and you see the gap between the ideal and
the real, there is something in your brain that went "Wohoo."
I heard it.
I heard you all say, "Wohoo."
It meant something, right?
What does, "Wohoo?"
I'm just interested.
Any of you?
Student: surprise.
Reich: Surprise.
Was it just surprise or was there something else? Student: Anger.
Reich: Anger, surprise, anything else?
Outrage. Student: Disappointment.
Reich: So in other words, the cognitive dissonance between the ideal and the reality kind of
sets up something going on in you and particularly when you understand most other people in this
country share your ideal.
And how can it be that the reality is that far removed from the ideal that most of us
share?
And even our assumption about what other people share, if they don't share that ideal.
Now, that cognitive dissonance, that "wohoo" is really important.
It is important in terms of social change.
And one thing we are going to be discussing in this class, and one thing we might be discussing,
we could go on discussing this too, is public policy.
Public policy without the oooh factor.
I'm calling it the oooh factor because the oooh factor is, you know, disappointment,
and surprise, and anger, and everything else.
Without the oooh factor public policy might as well be on the moon.
It doesn't have any capacity to actually be implemented, but when you add the emotional
outrage -- sadness, anger, everything else -- then you get the possibility for social
change.
Do you follow me?
When there is a wide gap between the reality and the ideal, wide enough that people actual
feel some dissonance in their heads, you get social change.
There are three elements of social change.
Three fundamental elements, and you go back in time in American history, you can see this
other countries as well, there are three big elements.
One is a widening gap between the ideal and the reality, the oooh factor we just talked
about.
There is a second, there is broad public knowledge of the gap.
Now this is where you come in, and you all indirectly come in, because most people don't
know that the gap is this big.
If there was broad public knowledge of the gap between an ideal and reality, whatever
the ideal is and whatever the reality is, when there is broad public knowledge, then
there is the possibility for social change.
But if people don't know, you don't get a oooh factor at all.
But there is also a third very important aspect of social change.
And never forget the third factor here, the third element.
And that is a widespread sense of efficacy, that is the ability to close the gap.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
That is, even if you find that there is a huge gap, and even if that gap is widely understood,
it doesn't matter what we are talking about -- we're talking about ideal and reality -- even
if it's widely understood, if people don't think there is anything that can be done,
if they think that they are ineffective, that there is no possibility for change, then you
still don't get social change.
You have to have all three.
And this is not a comment about liberal versus conservative or progressive versus something
else, this is about social change in any direction.
There are ideals, there are realities.
There is widespread public understanding and there is efficacy, a sense that something
can be done.
When you get the three together that's where you get social change.
If you don't have the three, then you get essentially stagnation or you get the status
quo.
Now the reason I bring this up, and the reason I bring this up in our first class together
is because we are going to be spending the next six weeks looking at a system, and if
you want to join us, well, we're filled up.
[Laughter] I'm sorry, but we may get back to do you with some focuses maybe at the end
of the class.
But if you, what we're going to do over the next six weeks, we're going to be looking
at the political-economic-social system.
So I mean that you can't separate politics, economics, and sociology.
They are all part of the same system, and it is a human made system.
The rules are made by us.
They are made in society.
And the next half of the course we're going to be looking at what can be done, but if
we don't have it in our heads a background theory of social change, then it just becomes
very, very academic -- interesting, but not particularly pertinent.
Which is why I said at the start of class I had two goals for you.
I'm not going to tell you what the second goal is until the end of our last class.
But it has a lot to do with you, and it has a lot to do with you.
See you next week.
[Applause]