Search results for ""Author Robert Kuttner""

In the years surrounding the Second World War, a serendipitous confluence of events created a healthy balance between the market and the polity—between the engine of capitalism and the egalitarian ideals of democracy. Yet, from the 1970s on, a power shift occurred in which financial regulations were rolled back, taxes were cut, inequality worsened and disheartened voters turned to far-right, faux populism. Robert Kuttner lays out the events that led to the post-war miracle and charts its dissolution all the way to Trump, Brexit and the tenuous state of the EU. He asks whether today’s poisonous alliance of reckless finance and ultra-nationalism is inevitable, and whether democracy can find a way to survive.

Read more less

This text disputes the laissez-faire direction of both economic theory and practice that has gained prominence since the mid-1970s. Dissenting voices, the author argues, have been drowned out by a sea of circular arguments and complex mathematical models that ignore real-world conditions and disregard values that can't easily be turned into commodities. Included is an explanation of how some sectors of the economyrequire a blend of market, regulation and social outlay.

Read more less

The 2020 presidential election will be pivotal for the credibility of government and for democracy itself, argues Robert Kuttner in this compelling call to arms. Either America continues the twin slides into corrupt autocracy and corporate plutocracy—the course set in the past half century by Republican and Democratic presidents alike—or Americans elect a progressive Democrat in the mould of FDR. At stake is nothing less than the continued success of the American experiment in liberal democracy. Kuttner convincingly shows that a progressive Democrat also has a better chance than a centrist of winning the presidency in the current political environment. The Stakes is the book to read ahead of the 2020 primaries.

Read more less

In the years surrounding the Second World War, a serendipitous confluence of events created a healthy balance between the market and the polity—between the engine of capitalism and the egalitarian ideals of democracy. Yet, from the 1970s on, a power shift occurred in which financial regulations were rolled back, taxes were cut, inequality worsened and disheartened voters turned to far-right, faux populism. Robert Kuttner lays out the events that led to the post-war miracle and charts its dissolution all the way to Trump, Brexit and the tenuous state of the EU. He asks whether today’s poisonous alliance of reckless finance and ultra-nationalism is inevitable, and whether democracy can find a way to survive.

Read more less

With history and the extraordinary parallels between Biden and FDR as his guide, the veteran political analyst diagnoses what’s at stake for America in 2022 and beyondJoe Biden has found his way back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. After four decades of diminishing prospects for ordinary people, the public likes what Biden is offering. Yet American democracy is in dire peril as Republicans, increasingly the national minority, try to destroy democracy in order to cling to power. It is the best of times and the worst of times. In Going Big, bestselling author and political journalist Robert Kuttner assesses the promise and peril of this critical juncture. Biden, like FDR in his time, faces multiple challenges. Roosevelt had to make terrible compromises with racist legislators to win enactment of his program. Biden, to achieve the necessary governing coalition, needs to achieve durable multiracial coalitions. Roosevelt had to conquer fascism in Europe; Biden must defeat it at home. And after four decades of neoliberal policy disasters reflecting Wall Street’s political influence, Biden needs to go beyond what even FDR achieved, to restore a democratic economy of broad possibility. From a writer with an unparalleled understanding of the history and politics that have made this moment possible, this book is the essential guide to what is at stake for Joe Biden, for America, and for our democracy.

Read more less