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Quote by Robert Reich

“You have to keep a sense of humor about yourself, more than anything else. You've got to take the issues very seriously, but you can't take yourself too seriously. And Washington is a city in which everybody takes themselves extraordinarily seriously.”

Quote by Robert Reich

Author

Robert Reich, born on June 24, 1946, is a former United States Secretary of Labor. He is an economist, author, and public intellectual, who served as the Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration. Reich is known for his profound insights into labor markets and economic policies. more

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“The industrial leader of the 20th century was a system-builder. He was a visionary in terms of what could be built; got the capital together; certainly convinced investors that it was possible; and then ran a high-volume production system that would spew out a vast array of almost identical goods and services. They would be changed from time to time; there was research and development, to be sure. But the system was built around production, not innovation.”

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“One logical consequence of this New Economy composed of big brands and entrepreneurial groups is that the unit of production is no longer a particular, identical product. The unit of production is the creative individual.”

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“Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

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“The path to success used to be up and through an organization. Now the path to success is increasingly through self-promotion.”

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“Organizations aren't loyal; they can't be. They have to be nimble, they have to change. That means everybody in every organization will have one eye on his or her own brand, and the other eye on the organization of which he or she is a part. And the first loyalty - self-loyalty - is becoming more and more dominant, simply as a survival strategy. I'm in no way blaming anyone here; this is just simply a fact of life.”

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“We can't have extraordinary dynamism, innovation, and change in the economy and expect to have predictability and stability in our personal lives. It's not as if there are these big, giant institutions existing between us and the economy. In fact, these institutions have become tissue-thin. There is no mediation anymore. We are the economy; the economy is us.”

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“We are now enjoying the liberation that comes with not having to be organization men and women, and that's fabulous. But there are new social consequences here of which we need to be aware, and the sale of the self and what that entails for the rest of our lives is quite sobering.”

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“Here's why I think the public service jobs are almost unavoidable: When we have downturns in the economy - and we will, for we haven't repealed the business cycle - unemployment will build, yet we no longer have any safety net. What are we going to do? Unless we decide to pull out all the stops and lower interest rates immediately and risk turning a recession into wild inflation, we're going to have to figure out some way of providing some more, not job security, but employment security.”

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“If we're concerned about volatility of earnings because we want some more stability in our lives, then let's create, instead of an unemployment insurance system, an earnings insurance system that will moderate the volatility for a certain period of time until we get back on our feet.”

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“You ask, "Could we have an honest discussion about earnings insurance?" I think we could, if people understood that the alternative was to build up a backlash against global capital, against free trade, against technological change.”

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