Rhetorical Analysis Draft 2

Nick Hanauers TED talk is about his future for the one percent that owns a majority of
the nation's wealth. He claim that the future for the very wealth is pitchforks.1 This basically
means that sooner or later people will be fed up with them and will strike at them. Nick tries to
explain that what we believe that works in the economy is not true. So he is trying to persuade
the audience to listen to what he has to say and maybe they could help.
What is Nicks main idea of this speech? The main idea is the growing wealth inequality
that is happening in America will lead to a down fall. Nick introduces himself as one of those
people who has most of the nations wealth. It is beneficial that he is part of the one percent,
because his audience that he is addressing are the extremely wealthy. It helps draw the attention
of the audience to him, rather than if a lowest class citizen were to give the same speech. Nick
argues that the increase of inequality is hurting the economy and something must be done.
Nick addresses a type of economic idea that America has been using. It is called trickle
down economics, which basically means that whatever benefits the rich, benefits everyone else.2
Nick argues that this type of economics does not work. Because Nick is saying that trickle down
economics does not work, plus he is one of the extremely wealthy who would normally support
that type of economics, it makes an argument against it more credible for Nick. It can also be
addressed that Nick talks about how the middle class is important in a capitalist society. He

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPiLE2Box2w
2 https://www.thebalance.com/trickle-down-economics-theory-effect-does-it-work3305572

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stated that, all highly prosperous capitalist democracies are characterised by massive
investments in the middle class and the infrastructure that they depend on.3 Meaning that a good
society, based on capitalism, would focus on helping the middle class to be successful.
Nick gives an example that his audience should follow, which is Henry Ford who
introduced the five dollar work day, which gave his employers more money.4 Along with
discussing Fords new wage introduction, Nick discusses the result of the increase of wage which
was: more productive employees, employees who can afford more products, and it the new wage
met the living needs of the works. This presents an example of where helping the lower class
proved more effective than trickle down economics is. This strengthens his argument against it.
Nick goes further to discuss the idea of increased wages by talking about the federal minimum
wage. He mentions an article he wrote called The Capitalists Case for a $15 Minimal Wage.
After inspecting the article, one will notice that it states pretty much everything Nick said about
minimum wage in the TED talk. Now the audience can read a summary of what he said even if
they missed anything.

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPiLE2Box2w
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPiLE2Box2w

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https://www.thebalance.com/trickle-down-economics-theory-effect-does-it-work-3305572
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPiLE2Box2w
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-06-19/the-capitalist-s-case-for-a-15-minimumwage