Reich: Understanding our split brain

He starts with the split brain around 12:00  in the video below after setting the stage with some real-time polling. Our consumer brain operates differently than our citizen brain, the latter being those ideals we hold about good social responsibility and behavior. Our consumer brain often wins the battle because: 1) we have limited resources; 2) we don't connect the consequences of our consumer choices with our citizen ideals, and; 3) we don't sacrifice higher prices for our ideals because we think no one else will.

To change that dynamic requires that number 1 be fulfilled before we can enact the rest. Which of course requires better jobs, living wages and better social benefits. Then we as consumers will have much more purchasing power with our choices, which in turn will affect how corporations run their business.

And that requires government responsive to the people to enact laws, but much of govt. is bought off by the very corporations that deliberately keep us in servitude so that we can't act on our higher ideals. So once again, we as citizens have to get actively engaged in the political process to elect the kind of politicians that will enact laws to give us better wages etc. And we need to do this even in the face of having limited financial resources and no control over our workplaces. We have to generate this motivation and drive despite our circumstances if we ever have any chance of changing them.