Backgrounder: Robert Kuttner

By Elizabeth Tsai

Robbert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner. Photo courtesy The Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

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Lecture: Robert Kuttner

A co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, Robert Kuttner writes for the magazine regularly on a variety of issues. Mostly, however, he focuses on economic policy, both domestic and international. His editorial column, which first appears in The Boston Globe, then on the Prospect website every Thursday, is distributed to 20 major newspapers nationwide. It was awarded the John Hancock Award for excellence in business and financial journalism. As well, Kuttner won the Jack London Award for labor journalism.

Kuttner's list of accolades makes for long reading. A graduate of Oberlin College, the University of California at Berkeley, and the London School of Economics, he also holds an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore College. In addition, he has been a John F. Kennedy Fellow at Harvard, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Radcliffe Public Policy Fellow.

He has taught at Brandeis University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. But Kuttner does more than polish his awards. He is the author of six books: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997); The End of Laissez-Faire (1991); The Life of the Party (1987); The Economic Illusion (1984); Revolt of the Haves (1980); and Family Re-union (2002), co-authored with his late wife, Sharland Trotter. Everything for Sale earned Kuttner the 1997 Sidney Hillman Award, given to public figures who pursue social justice, especially in the area of public policy. Currently, Kuttner is working on a book about deregulation and the stock market collapse.

Before co-founding the Prospect, Kuttner worked as assistant to the legendary I.F. Stone. He was a correspondent, program director, and station manager for Pacifica Radio; Washington editor of The Village Voice; and economics editor of The New Republic. Kuttner was also a national staff writer at The Washington Post during the Watergate era. In addition to his journalistic posts, Kuttner has served as chief investigator for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and as the executive director of President Carter's National Commission on Neighborhoods. Kuttner is one of five co-founders of the Economic Policy Institute, and still serves on its board today. For his work on the relationship of economic efficiency to social equality, he won the 1996 Paul Hoffman Award for Human Development of the United Nations.

Kuttner's journalistic accomplishments are no less impressive. He has contributed important articles regarding the pros and cons of health care to The New England Journal of Medicine as a national policy correspondent. His work has also been published in The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Dissent, and Harvard Business Review. Occasionally, listeners can hear his political commentaries on the National Public Radio program, "Talk of the Nation."

He has also appeared numerous times on Firing Line, Crossfire, Nightline and the PBS News Hour, usually as a commentator on political and economic issues. Most recently, he has covered the 2004 presidential campaign for The American Prospect. In his October 13, 2004 article, “How Kerry Can Win,” he wrote, “President Bush campaigned as an education president and pledged to leave no child behind. His main legacy, however, is a most un-Republican brand of federal mandates on public schools, imposing high-stakes testing but without the funding to deliver the promise of better schools and teachers.”

In a more recent article, "The Art of Stealing Elections" (October 21, 2004), he wrote, "The Republicans are out to steal the 2004 election — before, during, and after Election Day. Before Election Day, they are employing such dirty tricks as improper purges of voter rolls, use of dummy registration groups that tear up Democratic registrations, and the suppression of Democratic efforts to sign up voters, especially blacks and students."

In his writing, Kuttner combines a thorough knowledge of economics, penetrating political insights, a liberal mind, and talent in no small degree. His pointed arguments are matched by a biting tone, so lively it practically leaps off the page.

Elizabeth Tsai is a junior majoring in print journalism at NYU.

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