The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the

Host: The factory floor was silent now. The hum of machinery had stopped hours ago, leaving behind only the echo of what once was — steel beams, dust motes in fluorescent light, the smell of oil baked into concrete. Outside, the skyline of the city shimmered through the factory’s broken windows: glass towers, neon signs, a world that had risen high while the ground beneath it had hollowed out.

At a long metal table near the window, Jack sat with his jacket draped over his chair, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, fingers stained faintly with graphite and machine grease. Across from him, Jeeny poured coffee into two mismatched mugs, the kind left behind by a generation of workers who’d once believed hard work was enough.

Between them, lying flat on the table, was a torn-out page from an op-ed, its edges oil-smudged but its words still clear:

“The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage.” — Robert Reich

Jeeny: (reading it quietly) “He’s not wrong. The structure’s broken. You can’t fix a roof when the foundation’s already sinking.”

Host: Her voice was calm, but it carried the gravity of someone who had watched too many roofs fall on those who built them.

Jack: (sighing) “Yeah. But the problem is — no one wants to change the structure. They just keep repainting the cracks.”

Jeeny: “You mean policy without power.”

Jack: “Exactly. Raise the minimum wage, sure — but if you don’t fix how wealth flows, you’re just putting a bandage on a severed artery.”

Host: The light flickered above them, casting long, wavering shadows — as if even the building itself was listening.

Jeeny: “Stronger unions, though — that’s the heart of it. People forget the 20th century’s middle class wasn’t a miracle. It was a negotiation.”

Jack: (nodding) “Yeah. Collective power. It used to mean something. Now they call it ‘special interest.’”

Jeeny: “Funny how the word ‘union’ sounds threatening only when it belongs to workers, not shareholders.”

Jack: “Because ownership rebranded greed as innovation.”

Host: The coffee steamed between them, rising in thin, ghostly trails — the warmth fleeting in the cold air of the empty plant.

Jeeny: “Reich’s right — you can’t talk about fairness without talking about structure. The bottom 90 percent can’t climb if the ladder’s nailed to the ceiling.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “But here’s the thing — power never gives up comfort willingly. Every gain for workers came from pressure, not persuasion. From sweat, strikes, and solidarity.”

Jeeny: “And fear. The fear of what happens when people finally have nothing left to lose.”

Jack: “Exactly. History doesn’t move on speeches. It moves on desperation.”

Host: A distant rumble of thunder rolled outside — or maybe it was the sound of a passing freight train, the same one that carried goods from here to ports far away, where labor was cheaper and voices quieter.

Jeeny: “You know what I hate? How we make ‘economy’ sound abstract. Like it’s a machine — not people.”

Jack: “Yeah. ‘The economy grew,’ they say — as if it’s a living thing that grows while the people feeding it starve.”

Jeeny: “The truth is, an economy’s just a story — about who gets to eat and who gets told to wait.”

Jack: (quietly) “And the ending keeps getting rewritten by the same hands.”

Host: The sound of rain began — soft at first, then heavier, drumming against the tin roof, a rhythm that felt both cleansing and accusatory.

Jeeny: “You think stronger unions could still work now? In this world?”

Jack: “If they remember what they were meant to be — not bureaucracies, but communities. Not institutions, but movements.”

Jeeny: “Movements don’t pay salaries. They pay attention.”

Jack: “And that’s what’s missing. Attention. We stopped seeing each other as part of the same story.”

Jeeny: (staring out the window) “Because we built a world where survival feels like competition.”

Jack: “When it should’ve been collaboration.”

Host: The rain softened again, and the quiet stretched between them — not empty, but thick with thought.

Jeeny: “You know, my father worked in a plant like this. He used to come home covered in dust, smiling like he’d earned something honest. Not just money — dignity. When the factory shut down, it wasn’t the job he lost. It was his place in the world.”

Jack: “Yeah. Work used to mean belonging. Now it just means endurance.”

Jeeny: “And we call it progress.”

Jack: “Because we measure everything except meaning.”

Host: The hum of the fluorescent lights returned — a low, electric moan that filled the silence.

Jeeny: “I think Reich’s warning us — if you don’t rebuild fairness into the structure, the structure will collapse under its own imbalance.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s what’s already happening — the slow implosion of an economy built on extraction instead of contribution.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound biblical.”

Jack: “Maybe it is. Every civilization that forgets its workers ends up worshipping its wealth — right before it falls.”

Jeeny: “So what’s the answer?”

Jack: “The same as it’s always been — solidarity. But it has to evolve. The modern union isn’t a banner; it’s a network. A recognition that power’s not vertical anymore — it’s distributed.”

Jeeny: “You mean like code.”

Jack: “Exactly. Economic justice as open-source software.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “You’d make a poetic economist.”

Jack: “No, just a tired human who still believes fairness isn’t nostalgia.”

Host: The last of the rain faded into silence. The streetlights outside flickered on, bathing the old machines in a pale orange glow — relics of an age that had promised permanence and delivered precarity.

Jeeny: “You know, I think that’s what Mies and Reich had in common — structure. One built it from steel, the other from justice. But both knew: if the base isn’t sound, nothing stands.”

Jack: “And care, whether in architecture or economics, is the foundation.”

Jeeny: “And the lack of it, the real collapse.”

Host: They sat in silence, the factory echoing faintly around them — the sound of ghosts working still, building a world they’d never own.

And in that dim, flickering light, Robert Reich’s words felt less like policy and more like prophecy:

that growth without justice is decay in disguise;
that an economy is only as moral as its foundation;
and that if the bottom 90 percent are left behind,
eventually, there is no economy left to grow.

The rain had stopped.
The city’s hum returned.
And in the stillness of that old factory,
Jack and Jeeny sat side by side —
not economists, not idealists,
just witnesses —
to a world still learning
how to place its bricks of fairness
carefully together.