The Common Good

What holds a society together when truth feels negotiable, leaders serve themselves, and inequality divides neighbors from one another? In The Common Good, economist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich poses this urgent question and offers a moral roadmap for reclaiming civic trust and democratic values. He argues that America’s deep dysfunction—from political corruption to corporate greed and public cynicism—stems from abandoning its shared commitment to the common good. The book is not simply about policy or economics; it’s a moral inquiry into what we owe one another as citizens.

Reich contends that the survival of democracy depends not just on laws or markets but on unwritten norms of decency, fairness, and mutual obligation. These values formed the invisible glue of American life—until decades of selfishness, partisanship, and “whatever-it-takes” attitudes unraveled them. He challenges readers to rediscover that civic spirit, so that our society can move from the self-centered ethos of “Looking Out for #1” back to the “We the People” ideal that animated the nation’s founding.

The Moral Foundation of Society

Reich begins with a question: what connects citizens when institutions no longer inspire trust? He argues that every society rests on a moral consensus—a basic faith that others play by the same rules. When people believe that decency and fairness exist, life becomes simpler and cooperation possible. But when this trust erodes, as it has in recent decades, suspicion and exploitation take root. He opens the book with the story of Martin Shkreli, the notorious CEO who hiked drug prices and mocked Congress, to show how narcissism erodes community norms. Shkreli’s behavior, Reich notes, isn’t exceptional—it’s emblematic. It mirrors how powerful elites treat rules and ethics as optional.

From “We” to “Me”: America’s Moral Decline

Reich situates this moral collapse historically. He contrasts the civic idealism of John F. Kennedy’s era—when citizens asked what they could do for their country—with the selfish ethos that took hold in the late 1970s. Books like Robert Ringer’s Looking Out for #1 and films like Wall Street glorified greed. This cultural pivot transformed the Greatest Generation’s sense of duty into the Me Generation’s obsession with self-gain. Over time, cynicism infiltrated every major institution—government, business, media, and education—until the phrase “common good” itself sounded outdated.

Reich doesn’t nostalgically idolize the past. He acknowledges America’s historical injustices—racism, sexism, and inequality—but insists that earlier generations believed in striving toward moral ideals. The founding fathers spoke of “virtue” as a public responsibility. Abraham Lincoln echoed this covenant between generations, reminding citizens that liberty depends on virtue among the people. To Reich, the common good has always been a moral project, not just a political one.

Three Eras of Breakdown

The book charts three major breakdowns: political corruption, corporate greed, and economic rigging. First, Nixon’s Watergate initiated a “whatever-it-takes-to-win” culture of politics, turning public service into self-service. Second, the corporate raiders of the 1980s—like Michael Milken and Carl Icahn—transformed stakeholder capitalism into shareholder supremacy. Businesses that once served employees and communities began serving only investors. Third, vast wealth flooded politics, blurring democratic accountability. As Powell’s 1971 memo urged corporate America to seize political power, money became speech, and the common good was commodified.

Reich’s analysis recalls sociologist James Q. Wilson’s “broken window” theory of social decay: when small transgressions go unpunished, they normalize larger ones. Over time, public trust shattered. Laws grew complex, relationships legalistic, and society divided into private enclaves where citizens sought advantage rather than shared progress. We became, he says, “a nation of deal-makers instead of citizens.”

Restoring the Common Good

Reich’s remedy isn’t idealistic nostalgia but moral reconstruction. He calls for leadership rooted in trusteeship—leaders who view themselves as guardians of public trust rather than maximizers of personal gain. He reclaims ancient tools of civic enforcement: honor and shame. By publicly celebrating those who act for others and exposing those who exploit trust, society reaffirms its values. He also champions truth as a public resource, urging citizens to protect honest journalism, whistleblowers, and education that teaches critical thinking. Finally, he argues that civic education must return to schools to renew moral reasoning—a concept reminiscent of Horace Mann’s belief that democracy requires educated citizens.

Why It Matters Now

Reich warns that without a shared moral foundation, democracy crumbles into division and demagoguery. The same forces that enabled Trump’s rise—inequality, distrust, and truth decay—were decades in the making. The good news, he says, is that America still possesses moral muscle memory: ordinary citizens continue to volunteer, donate, and help neighbors. These everyday acts of altruism are seeds of renewal. By elevating civic responsibility above self-interest, we can rebuild the reservoir of trust that makes democracy work.

The core argument: America’s crises are moral, not mechanical. Laws and reforms alone cannot fix them. Only a renewed commitment to honesty, empathy, and civic virtue can resurrect the common good—and with it, faith in democracy itself.

Reich traces the idea of the common good back to the moral architecture of democracy itself. From the Puritans’ covenant of mutual aid to the Founding Fathers’ conviction that liberty requires virtue, he shows that America was built not on efficiency or profit but on shared responsibility. The founding generation saw civic virtue as the lifeblood of republican government—a belief echoed by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Montesquieu. They understood that freedom can’t survive without morality to guide it.

Virtue as Public Responsibility

For Madison, the Constitution itself rested on trust: the assumption that citizens would act for the public good. “No form of government can render us secure without virtue in the people,” he warned. Jefferson and Burke saw civic morality as a defense against tyranny—an understanding carried forward by thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville and Martin Luther King Jr., who tied justice to moral duty. As Tocqueville observed, democracy thrives when people habitually place public obligation over private gain.

Religion and the Moral Commons

Religious roots also shaped American moral identity. Puritan leader John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” urged settlers to “delight in each other, labor and suffer together,” forming a moral community bound by trust. Reich argues that this compact—between self-interest and communal responsibility—remains the spiritual foundation of democracy. Christianity’s emphasis on compassion and stewardship gave rise to civic altruism: the belief that success carries a duty to serve others.

The Unfinished Covenant

Yet the American version of virtue was imperfect. Early notions of the common good excluded women, African Americans, and Native peoples. Over centuries, the nation expanded moral inclusion—from abolition to suffrage to civil rights to marriage equality—by redefining who counts as “We the People.” What endures across these struggles is the belief that justice requires empathy and participation. As Lincoln wrote, we are “legal inheritors” of liberty, entrusted to pass it forward. Reich calls this chain of moral inheritance America’s “mystic chords of memory.”

The common good, Reich reminds us, is a living covenant—spanning past, present, and future generations. When we neglect it, we betray not only each other but the ancestors who built it and the children who will inherit it.

Reich’s chapter “Exploitation” reveals how greed and dishonesty can destroy the trust that sustains a society. He compares social trust to an open pool: when the first person pollutes it for private gain, everyone must pay the price. Once people realize others are exploiting the system, they lock their doors—literally and figuratively. Laws multiply, suspicion spreads, and cooperation fades.

The First-Mover Advantage

Exploitation begins with one opportunist who breaks unwritten rules. Shkreli’s manipulation of drug prices mirrors the “first thief in town” who steals while everyone else trusts. When cheaters prosper, honesty becomes irrational. Reich lists historical scandals—from Watergate to the 2008 financial crisis—showing a pattern: each breach of integrity lowers the nation’s moral expectations. “Define deviancy down,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned—and Reich agrees. When wrongdoing feels normal, cynicism replaces conscience.

The Cascade of Dishonor

Reich’s timeline of scandals—political corruption, corporate fraud, and moral hypocrisy—illustrates how unpunished violations embolden others. Nixon’s abuse of power led to the normalization of deceit. Corporate executives who manipulated markets without consequence inspired imitators. Police brutality, insider trading, and dishonest advertising all stem from the same public silence. As moral standards collapse, “whatever it takes” becomes the new ethic.

The Cost of Moral Erosion

Each act of exploitation forces society to compensate with complexity: more oversight, stricter contracts, heavier bureaucracy. We pay the price through inefficiency and mistrust. Reich’s metaphor of the “broken window” applies nationwide: when leaders shatter norms, the rest of society assumes corruption is inevitable. The outcome is widespread disillusionment—the sense that no one plays fair anymore.

Reich’s warning is clear: once the common good becomes negotiable, democracy transforms into a zero-sum game of self-preservation. The challenge is not merely to punish exploiters but to restore the moral expectations they destroyed.

Reich outlines three “structural breakdowns” of America’s moral order—each rooted in a betrayal of trust. Together, they explain how the pursuit of power, profit, and privilege replaced civic purpose.

1. Politics for Power

Watergate was the turning point: Nixon’s lust for control birthed modern cynicism. When he said, “If the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” Reich calls it the death of accountability. The Bork hearings, Gingrich-era partisanship, and endless government shutdowns reveal how both parties adopted “whatever-it-takes-to-win” tactics. Obama’s executive orders and Trump’s divisive nationalism, though ideologically opposite, stem from the same disease—pragmatic corrosion of democratic process for short-term gain.

2. Corporations for Profit

In the 1980s, corporate raiders like Michael Milken and CEOs like Jack Welch turned stakeholder capitalism into shareholder supremacy. Once seen as “corporate statesmen,” executives began slashing jobs and communities to raise profit margins. The GE model—earning admiration for shedding workers—became the template. Health care and banking joined the race; insurers cherry-picked the healthy, and banks gambled with public money. By tying CEO pay to stock prices, greed became structurally rewarded.

3. Money for Influence

Reich’s third breakdown began with Lewis Powell’s 1971 memo urging corporations to seize political power. Over decades, lobbying exploded from hundreds to tens of thousands. Wealthy elites bought legislation, while the Supreme Court sanctified money as speech. Both parties drank from this fountain—Tony Coelho’s Democrats and Reagan’s Republicans alike—and democracy became a marketplace. When Wall Street crashed in 2008, none of its architects went to jail; instead, taxpayers footed the bill. Reich calls this moral inversion “a vast redistribution from the common good to private coffers.”

Each breakdown reinforced the next: corrupted politics protected predatory business, which then financed more corruption. The cycle of profit and power left citizens feeling voiceless—and democracy itself rigged.

To rebuild civic trust, Reich argues that leadership must become stewardship. True leaders act not as winners but as trustees of the institutions they serve. Leadership is not about accumulating power or wealth—it’s about preserving public faith.

Reclaiming Moral Authority

Reich contrasts two models: the “whatever-it-takes” leader who serves self-interest versus the trustee who embodies integrity. He celebrates figures like Senator John McCain, who denounced partisanship and defended legislative cooperation even near death. McCain’s refusal to demonize opponents—telling supporters that Barack Obama was “a decent family man”—epitomized moral courage. Such leaders remind citizens that democracy requires character, not victory.

Moral Leadership in Business

Corporations, Reich insists, must also act as trustees. He highlights CEOs like Arthur T. Demoulas of Market Basket, who treated business as a shared enterprise for employees and consumers. When fired for prioritizing fairness over profits, Demoulas’s workers revolted—and won. By contrast, leaders like Donald Trump modeled ethical bankruptcy: boasting about avoiding taxes and buying political favors. Reich challenges CEOs to support public campaign finance, fair wages, and sustainable communities as measures of success, not obstacles to profit.

A New Definition of Success

Leadership as trusteeship means redefining victory. Political wins that erode trust are not successes; record profits earned through exploitation are failures. Reich quotes Shimon Peres’s vision of leadership as “a noble cause, defined not by ambition but by morality.” It is the call to serve rather than to conquer—a philosophy reminiscent of Peter Drucker’s view of management as a moral art, not a competitive sport.

Reich’s message is simple yet radical: every office, boardroom, and presidency is a trust. Leadership’s true measure is not power gained but trust preserved.

Reich reminds us that societies once used honor and shame to enforce moral norms. Today, we honor wealth and celebrity while shaming difference. To revive the common good, he urges us to honor courage and shame corruption.

Honoring the Right People

In modern America, billionaires receive honorary degrees while whistleblowers lose their jobs. Reich spotlights heroes like Eileen Foster, who exposed fraud at Countrywide, and General Antonio Taguba, who denounced torture at Abu Ghraib. He proposes new “Common Good Awards” to honor those who protect truth and dignity—echoing Tocqueville’s belief that virtue must be socially celebrated.

Shaming Corruption

Shame can be powerful when properly targeted. Reich recounts historic examples—from Joseph Welch confronting Senator McCarthy to Kenneth Frazier resigning from Trump’s business council after Charlottesville—to show how moral resistance can shift public conscience. True shame exposes hypocrisy; false shame punishes vulnerability. He warns against digital mob shaming while urging accountability for those who betray public trust.

The Difference Between Private and Public Morality

Reich distinguishes private morality (sexual conduct, personal choices) from public morality (actions that affect others). Society fixates on private sins while ignoring public ones—corruption, fraud, corporate predation, and abuse of power. He argues that public immorality is far more dangerous, because it erodes faith in justice itself.

Honor and shame are civic tools.

By celebrating decency and condemning deceit, Americans can remind one another of their shared moral boundaries. These emotional levers, when aimed at integrity rather than conformity, can help reweave the fabric of trust.

“Without a shared truth,” Reich writes, “democratic deliberation is impossible.” His chapter on resurrecting truth examines the collapse of factual consensus—from fake news and corporate propaganda to political lies. Truth is the oxygen of democracy; when polluted, public reasoning suffocates.

The War on Reality

Reich chronicles how economic and political interests have corrupted truth-telling institutions. Corporations manipulate research, universities silence critics, and governments spin data. He cites examples like Google funding academics to produce favorable studies and public broadcasters canceling documentaries that offend donors. Under Trump, “alternative facts” became state propaganda, while journalists and scientists were attacked as enemies.

Media’s Profit Paradox

News organizations meant to inform now chase ratings. Reich recounts CBS’s CEO admitting that Trump’s campaign was “damn good for CBS,” prioritizing profits over public service. As coverage turned into entertainment, citizens lost trust. Between 1972 and 2016, confidence in the press fell from 72% to 18%. The result: polarized echo chambers and algorithmic manipulation that turn facts into factions.

Social Media and Self-Deception

Reich once hoped digital media would democratize truth; instead, it deepened isolation. People now live in ideological bubbles reinforced by algorithms. He urges readers to break out—by engaging with opposing views and diverse sources. “The best way to learn,” he tells his students, “is to talk with someone who disagrees with you.”

Protecting Public Truth

Reich recommends systemic safeguards: transparency in research funding, independent journalism, civic education, and privacy protections against data-mining. Truth, like clean air, requires regulation and vigilance. He calls lying by officials “intellectual treason”—a betrayal not of policy but of democracy itself.

Resurrecting truth means rebuilding a shared reality, where citizens debate facts—not fantasies—and logic once again guides collective decisions.

Reich ends his book with a passionate plea for civic education—the renewal of moral literacy among citizens. He argues that schools must teach not only math and coding but the ethics of self-government. Democracy, he reminds us, is not self-sustaining; it requires citizens capable of critical thought and civic virtue.

Education as a Public Good

Reich contrasts today’s view of education as a private investment—with parents seeking personal returns—with the founders’ belief that education was a public safeguard. Jefferson warned that ignorance breeds tyranny; Horace Mann insisted schools must educate children “in common.” When learning becomes privatized, civic understanding collapses. Reich urges reviving civics courses and national service programs to rebuild shared values.

Teaching the Habits of Citizenship

Students should learn how systems work, why truth matters, and how to reason together despite disagreement. This means teaching the Constitution, economic fairness, and empathy through community engagement. Reich envisions two years of mandatory public service for all young adults—military, civic, or nonprofit—as a living education in responsibility. Such immersion would reconnect youth across class and culture while restoring pride in shared duty.

Relearning Hope

Reich ends with a call to optimism, quoting theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.” Despite corruption and division, he sees compassion in everyday acts—volunteers, teachers, and citizens who still care. These flickers of decency, he writes, can light the path back to the common good.

Civic education is moral education. Through knowledge, participation, and service, Americans can reclaim their shared identity—not as consumers or partisans, but as citizens of a common cause.