Netflix Pick of the Week: “Inequality for All”

In the midst of this year’s Oscar buzz, the New York Times described Leonardo DiCaprio’s roles in his recent films “The Great Gatsby” and, of course, “The Wolf of Wall Street” as “putting a face on the ambivalence that capitalism continues to inspire.” Collectively, Americans admire, envy and despise—all at once—what we now refer to as the 1%. The wealthy, it appears, are the beacon of hope to many Americans who see their success as the result of the American Dream. “Inequality for All,” a 2013 documentary narrated by former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, attempts to put these things into perspective by highlighting the growing problem of income inequality in the Unites States. Today, the United States ranks 64 the world in income equality, sitting behind Iran and the Ivory Coast and just above Uganda. “Inequality for All” discusses the various reasons why the middle class is disappearing and why the wealth of the nation is becoming increasingly more concentrated in a select few. In fact, today 400 Americans control more wealth than nearly half the nation combined. Reich argues that, while inequality is inherent in the capitalist system and thus inevitable, it also provides the necessary incentives to inspire hard work and innovation. The question he attempts to answer is “how much inequality can an economy tolerate before the democracy and the economy itself are no longer properly functioning?” The documentary certainly has a liberal tilt and those with an affinity for trickle down economics might not appreciate what Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor has to say, but it’s well worth the 90 minutes if only to understand the real gravity—and validity—of one of the United States’ most pressing problems.