recently visited berkeley, california, for the bay area book festival where former secretary of labor robert reich offered his thoughts on economic inequality. >> well, first of all, there's absolutely no law anywhere that says that corporations have to maximize shareholder value. [applause] >> and before the late 1970s and 1980s, actually, there were a lot of beg corporations out there -- big corporations out there, believe it or not, who not only did not maximize shareholder value, but paid their employees a fair wage. part of that was unionization, but they didn't fight the unions. and they also were concerned about the communities where they were founded, where their headquarters was. and they balanced the interest of shareholders with the interests of their workers and their communities. then came the late '70s, early 1980s, and we saw these people from wall street who were basically in the takeover business. they decided that there was money to be made by threatening to take over companies that were so-called -- and i love this term -- quote-unquote, underperforming. now, what underperformin