Robert Kuttner has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators. The most-rated is The Stakes.
Obama's Challenge
Summary
The challenge: to be a transformative president. Barack Obama approaches the presidency at a critical moment in American history, facing simultaneous crises of war, the environment, health care, but especially the economy. If he is able to rise to the moment, he could join the ranks of a small handful of previous presidents who have been truly transformative, succeeding in fundamentally changing our economy, society, and democracy for the better. But this will require imaginative and decisive action as Obama takes office, action bolder than he has promised during his campaign, and will be all the more difficult given the undertow of conventional wisdom in Washington and on Wall Street that resists fundamental change. Decades of regressive politics and political gridlock have left America in its most precarious situation since the onset of the Great Depression. The collapse of the housing bubble continues, as does the financial meltdown it triggered; a revival of 1970s-style stagflation threatens; incomes continue to lag behind inflation; our household and international debts pile higher; disastrous climate change looms; energy and food prices continue their escalation; and the ranks of un- and under-insured Americans are growing as the health-insurance system unravels. Solutions to our multiple challenges do exist, but they won't be found in overly cautious or expedient quick fixes. With his exceptional skill at appealing to our better angels, Barack Obama could be the right leader at the right time to re-awaken America to the renewed promise of shared prosperity, coupled with responsibility towards future generations and the international community with whom we share the Earth. Invoking America's greatest leaders, Robert Kuttner explains how Obama must be a transformative president - or a failed one.
©2008 Robert Kuttner (P)2008 Audible, Inc.
Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
Summary
Before and after World War II, 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. Under Roosevelt's New Deal, unions and collective bargaining were legalized. Glass-Steagall reined in speculative finance. At Bretton Woods, a global financial system was devised explicitly to allow nations to manage capitalism. Yet this golden era turned out to be lightning in a bottle. 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 postwar miracle, and charts its dissolution all the way to Trump, Brexit, and the tenuous state of the EU. Is today's poisonous alliance of reckless finance and ultra-nationalism inevitable? Or can democracy find a way to survive?
©2018 Robert Kuttner (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Stakes
Summary
To save both democracy and a decent economy, here's why it's crucial that Americans elect a truly progressive president. The 2020 presidential election will be pivotal for the credibility of government and for democracy itself, argues Robert Kuttner in this brief and compelling call to arms. Either we continue the twin slides into corrupt autocracy and corporate plutocracy - the course set in the past half century by Republican and Democratic presidents alike - or we elect a progressive Democrat in the mold of FDR. At stake is nothing less than the continued success of the American experiment in liberal democracy, which depends on a fairer distribution of life chances and a reduction of the financial industry's influence in the political sphere. Kuttner goes on to show convincingly that a progressive Democrat also has a better chance than a centrist of winning the presidency in the current political environment. A passionate book from one of our best political analysts, The Stakes will be the book to listen to ahead of the 2020 primaries.
©2019 Robert Kuttner (P)2019 Recorded Books