The system is rigged.
It’s a sentiment that’s been bandied about a lot in recent years. But what exactly is this system? How did it emerge, and can something be done to reform it?
Robert Reich—former U.S. secretary of labor and professor of public policy emeritus at UC Berkeley—spells out things for a lay audience in his 2020 book The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.
Early on, he counsels his readers to throw away generally accepted impressions about how things now work in the United States. For one thing, we should stop thinking of politics as bouts between the Democrats and the Republicans.
Instead, it’s important to see the political realm as a struggle for power between a tiny group that dominates the current system and the rest of us—individuals with barely any power or none whatsoever.
It’s also wrong to think that pursuing more growth and more efficiency is always good. What actually matters, Reich contends, is “who benefits from more growth and efficiency.”
Something else that needs to go: the belief that corporations excel when they outdo their rivals. Nowadays, more than anything else, their success comes from acquiring and extending monopoly control.
According to Reich’s historical recap, our current system of concentrated economic and political power had its origins in the 1980s.
A hundred years ago, the landscape of political influence was significantly different. The combined power of labor unions, farm cooperatives, retail companies and smaller banks reined in the power of large companies to some extent. By doing so, such groups boosted the political clout of the country’s America’s middle and working class, allowing them to benefit from gains in the overall economy.
For Reich, a tipping point happened during the Reagan era—a paradigm shift in the way corporations came to view themselves and the way they should manage their affairs.
The tactics of corporate raiders like Carl Icahn and Michael Milken inspired this new perspective.
Such takeover artists zeroed in on firms that could bring shareholders superior returns, primarily by ignoring all of the other stakeholders. They boosted profits by reducing workers’ pay, eliminating jobs and moving facilities.
They also worked hard to knock down unions’ size and influence. Private equity and hedge fund managers supported this aggressive stance, as did heads of mutual funds, insurance funds and pension funds.
The sharp decline of union power helped to establish a lopsided economic system that greatly favored business interests.
Another key change that brought this new system into being: moves to deregulate the financial sector.
For example, eliminating the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 gave banks the green light to use risky financial instruments.
Banks could now increase their profits, but such instruments also cost taxpayers billions when some financial arrangements went south. When Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, for example, taxpayers forked out about $2 billion.
Prominent members of both parties had a role in these deregulatory moves.
Alan Greenspan, a Republican, sought on several occasions to loosen restrictions on the banks’ operations.
Democrat Charles Schumer contended that removing the Glass-Steagall Act would secure “the future of America’s dominance as the financial center of the world,” and members of the Clinton administration suppressed efforts to monitor and regulate large swatches of the derivative market.
As the number of unionized workers plummeted, so did their political strength.
Although Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the White House in 2009, unions couldn’t win a fight to unionize worksites when a majority of employees wanted this to happen.
Unions also lost ground in many states. During the 2010s, anti-union right-to-work laws appeared in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky. Although these had all traditionally been union strongholds, Democrats did little to head off this legislation.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.1% of U.S. workers were unionized in 1983. That figure slipped to 11.3% in 2013 and dropped even further to 9.9% in 2024.
The U.S. economy grew by 48% between 1999 and 2018. However, as a result of this paradigm shift, the income of average households didn’t register any growth at all in that period, and the bottom half of the country wound up with less wealth than it had previously.
Meanwhile, the top 1% raked in double the wealth that it had before the financial crisis of 2007, and the top 0.1% amassed triple the wealth.
Reich argues that the growth of corporate influence has negatively impacted the nation’s economy and well-being. It’s curbed workers’ pay, exacerbated inequality and choked innovation.
What can be done about this system?
Reich contends that reforms can only succeed “if the vast majority, whose incomes have stagnated and whose wealth has failed to increase, join together to demand fundamental change.”
Six years have passed since The System appeared in print, and—given the unconstitutional initiatives and unethical conduct in the current administration—the need for the sort of mass reform movement that he envisioned is even more urgent.
David Brooks addressed this need in the November 2025 issue of The Atlantic.
Brooks takes heart in the success stories in such nations as Poland, South Korea and Nepal, where citizen movements were able to overcome oppressive regimes.
While commending the recent “No Kings” demonstrations as well as the actions of Indivisible groups, Brooks argues that a larger, more inclusive movement needs to form.
It would have to be “a cross-class movement, one that joined members of the educated class with members of the working class, shrinking the social chasms that gave rise to populism in the first place.”
How could such a coalition be successful?
First, it needs to share stories rather than mere slogans or policy proposals—stories that can persuade others to join its ranks.
As an example of such a “mini-drama,” Brooks points to the current administration’s plan to burn 500 tons of food aid in July 2025 rather than pass it out to people in need. Such narratives, if used regularly and spread effectively, could amplify the calls for change.
Second, social movements need to have heroes—such as Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience had a galvanizing impact.
Third, they must also have adversaries. During the Revolutionary War that was King George III; today, a mass reform movement must also select key villains and keep the public apprised about their malfeasance.
Finally, and most crucially, actions need to be taken, public displays that can fan the flames of the movement. These could include walkouts, marches and mass petitions.
Brooks concedes that, just as in other countries in recent decades, such a struggle would be a long and arduous one.
The alternative to such a movement, though, isn’t a pretty one. As Reich writes in The System, “Unlike income or wealth, power is a zero-sum game. The more of it there is at the top, the less there is anywhere else.”
