Book Alert / The Squandering of America

The Squandering of America -- How the Failure of our Politics Undermines our Prosperity by Robert Kuttner, Knopf '07, $26.95, 337 pages, ISBN #1400040809. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

It may be a comfort to liberals to know that Robert Kuttner can be always be found stationed at the left wall of the ship of the American republic, with his fingers in dikes labeled Medicare and Social Security while, with his other arm, he unleashes salvos against hedge funds and subprime lenders. He examined the nature of markets in his well-received Everything for Sale. Now the founder of the American Prospect magazine is back again, and no one will be surprised that he has found new conservative evils to rail against.

Kuttner ably sketches the evolution of American democracy into the 20th century, when "a more democratic American became a more balanced society," with public policy promoting broad prosperity and economic security, particularly after legislation of the FDR and LBJ eras and felicitous Supreme Court rulings. But lately, the formerly diffuse power has been consolidated by "a narrow elite, which blocks the ability of government to restore broad prosperity to the majority of citizens."

Ever the Cassandra, Kuttner posits that "The ultimate test of a democracy is whether it is possible for the people to throw out the governing party" and suggests that because of this unprecedented power grab, "we have come very close to losing our democracy, not just in rigged rules and stolen elections but in the domination of politics by big money, the decline in participation by ordinary people, and the assault on basic constitutional liberties."