Robert Kuttner Quotes & Sayings

George Stigler Nobel laureate and a leader of Chicago School was asked why there were no Nobel Prizes awarded in the other social sciences, sociology, psychology, history, etc. "Don't worry", Stigler said, "they have already have a Nobel Prize in ... Literature" — Robert Kuttner

But of course you can have your cake and eat it, too - if you decide to to bake a second cake. And you may well find that baking two cakes does not take twice the work of baking one. — Robert Kuttner

Though editorialists at The New York Times and The Washington Post still don't get it, most Democrats in Congress finally do: Today's trade disputes are no longer mostly about tariffs, quotas, or free entry of goods. They are about the ground rules for capitalism. Are there to be only property rights? What about the other rights that liberal democracies have fought for since the 1880s? — Robert Kuttner

For over a century, popular struggles in the democracies have used the nation-state to temper raw capitalism. The power of voters has offset the power of capital. But as national barriers have come down in the name of freer commerce, so has the capacity of governments to manage capitalism in a broad public interest. So the real issue is not "trade" but democratic governance. — Robert Kuttner

Britain, with the most completely socialized health system in the West, now spends the lowest fraction of GNP on health care of any major nation. There are frequent complaints of excessive waits for elective surgery and other inconveniences, but British citizens live slightly longer than Americans, on average, and our overall health conditions are comparable. — Robert Kuttner

Technological change is beneficial only when other jobs replace the ones lost. — Robert Kuttner

The combination of these two trends - declining real wages and inflated asset prices - led the American middle class to use debt as a substitute of income. People lacked adequate earnings but felt wealthier. A generation of Americans grew accustomed to borrowing against their homes to finance consumption, and banks were more than happy to be their enablers. In my generation, second mortgages were considered highly risky for homeowners. The financial industry re-branded them as home equity loans, and they became ubiquitous. Third mortgages, even riskier, were marketed as 'home equity lines of credit. — Robert Kuttner

The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth. — Robert Kuttner

What do you call an economist with a prediction? Wrong. — Robert Kuttner

The Unheavenly Chorus is the definitive study of participatory inequality in America. Marshaling prodigious evidence, the authors show how money not only buys influence directly but also affects associations that are supposed to be democratic antidotes to concentrated wealth. A monumental achievement of careful scholarship, this book offers real knowledge of how politics actually operates. — Robert Kuttner

By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization. — Robert Kuttner

It is more than a little ironic that "capital accumulation" once a rather tendentious Marxian view of a supposed capitalist obsession, should have become - of all things - Wall Street's own slogan. — Robert Kuttner

Despite its scientific
pretensions, economics still remains more of an art than a science — Robert Kuttner

Donald Rumsfeld should not just be impeached. He should be tried as a war criminal. As for Bush, he can be dispatched by the electorate while we are still a democracy. — Robert Kuttner

Both rich and poor nations have a common stake in policies that put the globe on a sustainable development path. The conflict is less between poor and rich countries than between the broad interests of people and the narrow interests of extractive industries. We need to find our way towards some kind of global regime that reduces emissions of the greenhouse gases, but well-off nations need to transfer the technology to make this possible, rather than viewing this shift as one more opportunity for private industry to profit. — Robert Kuttner

We are already well down the road toward a managed-trade regime. It would be far better to acknowledge that reality, and seek a set of reasonable rules, than to pretend that Ricardian trade is the norm and allow mercantilist states to overwhelm U.S. industry and ratchet down wages, in the name of free trade. — Robert Kuttner

When laissez-faire creates instability, the move to a freer market can be something less than pure gain. — Robert Kuttner

In practice, a good deal of the outcomes produced by the market reflect nothing more than luck - good or bad. — Robert Kuttner

Not surprisingly, extensive effort in Britain and America goes into finding tax shelter. the system is "efficient" for the shelter industry, not for the economy. — Robert Kuttner

As a scholarly discipline, economics has always suffered from physics envy. — Robert Kuttner

If Boeing got a big head start on the 707 from multibillion-dollar military contracts to develop an air force transport, is that a sin against free trade? — Robert Kuttner

In a world where technology and capital are highly transferable, there is a real risk that comparative advantage comes to be defined as whose labor force will work for the lowest wage. — Robert Kuttner

American critics of welfare statism are often surprised to learn that countries like West Germany, with a much more comprehensive welfare state and a statistically larger public sector, have fewer government employees per capita than the United States does. — Robert Kuttner

If social security depresses savings rates, it is only because it is unfunded. — Robert Kuttner

Henry Ford, in a sense, was the first Keynesian. He paid his assembly workers high wages so they could afford to buy his cars. — Robert Kuttner

Technological advance often thrives in sheltered and subsidized markets, which defy free trade. — Robert Kuttner