Another claim is that they stand for the three columns of the German workers' movement a party, a trade union and the Reichsbanner Schwarz Rot Gold.

I asked Reich what three policy prescriptions he would give to an American president and Congress today, especially drawing on the lessons of other countries.

Anyone who thinks these policies are no longer feasible in a global economy, Reich told me, hasn t looked at modern Germany, which features all of them, and where the median wage is higher than ours.

Reich also persuasively describes the vicious circle with falling wages undermining consumer demand and leading, in turn, to shrinking output that has made the US economy fragile and boosted social instability.

The secret to a strong economy is to invest in education, strengthen household incomes with a decent minimum wage and strong unions, and raise skill levels, thereby generating sustained consumer demand. This, Reich argues, is the virtuous cycle that we see in strong economies such as Germany, in which workers are highly skilled and educated, unions are protected, and the middle class has leisure and money to spend.

The tribal feelings of Germans were considered, for obvious reasons, to be particularly toxic after Hitler s Reich, which is why German flag waving, until recently, was exercised with a slight air of shame faced restraint that was entirely absent in surrounding countries.

But, looking at the affluent German middle class from the US, where a quarter of jobs pay wages that place workers at or below the poverty line, Reich s recommendations seem worth fighting for.

Joseph Stiglitz in his book Freefall, and Robert Reich in his Aftershock, have told similar stories, while the economists Michael Kumhof and Romain Ranciere have devised a formal mathematical version of the possible link between income concentration and financial crisis.

They would fight, die, win, and thus destroy the Nazi hope of dominating Eurasia for even one more year let alone of establishing Hitler s 1,000 year Reich.

The film s charts are not boring, but actual showstoppers Reich makes the point that the mid 1940 s to the mid 1970 s were decades of relative income equality, which corresponded with overall affluence.