In The Economic Illusion Robert Kuttner sets out to refute the conventional view that a more egalitarian distribution of income and services is only achievable at the expense of a prosperous and growing capitalism. By carefully examining issues where economic growth and social justice appear to be in conflict—issues such as social security, protectionism, income taxation, and welfare—he convincingly argues that equality and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive pursuits.
As a means to reconcile equality with efficiency—i.e., prosperity—Kuttner argues for economic polices that would deemphasize private markets, for an increase in trade protection, and for an adapted version of the technical approaches of such countries as Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Japan.
Kuttner concludes his arguments with the suggestion that injustice is not necessarily an economic issue and that practical social alternatives are possible.
Robert Kuttner is cofounder and coeditor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a
Distinguished Senior Fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for
BusinessWeek, and continues to write columns in the Boston Globe.
His previous and widely praised books include The Squandering of America: How the Failure
of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity; Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of
Markets (about which Robert Heilbroner wrote, "I have never seen the market system better
described, more intelligently appreciated, or more trenchantly criticized than in Everything for
Sale"); The End of Laissez-Faire: National Purpose and the Global Economy After the Cold
War; and The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice.
Kuttner"s magazine writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and Book Review,
The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Dissent,
Columbia Journalism Review, and Harvard Business Review. He has contributed
major articles to The New England Journal of Medicine as a national policy correspondent.
Formerly an assistant to the legendary I.F. Stone, chief investigator for the Senate Banking Committee, Washington Post staff writer, economics
editor for The New Republic, and university lecturer, Kuttner"s decades-long intellectual and political project has been to revive the
politics and economics of harnessing capitalism to serve a broad public interest.
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