Marcus Raskin

Marcus Raskin
Born (1934-04-30) April 30, 1934
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Occupation social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher
Known for co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies
Spouse(s) Barbara Bellman (divorced)
Lynn Randels
Children with Bellman:
--Erika Raskin Littlewood
--Jamie Raskin
--Noah Raskin
with Randels:
--Eden Raskin
Parent(s) Anna Goodman Raskin
Ben Raskin

Marcus Raskin (born April 30, 1934) is a prominent American social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher, working for progressive social change in the United States.

He is the co-founder, with Richard Barnet, of the progressive think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is also a professor of public policy at George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

Early life and education

Raskin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, Ben Raskin, and mother, Anna Goodman Raskin, owned a plumbing store in Milwaukee, where his father worked as a master plumbing contractor. At the age of 16, Raskin left home to study at New York's Juilliard School with Rosina Lhevinne and Lee Thompson. He abandoned a career in music to study at the University of Chicago. There Raskin studied with Rexford Guy Tugwell, an economist and member of FDR’s Brain Trust, and Quincy Wright, a legal scholar for whom Raskin served as an assistant during his law school years. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in liberal arts in 1954 and from the University of Chicago Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1957.

Government service

Raskin moved to Washington, D.C. in 1958, where he became a legislative counsel to a group of liberal congressmen, including Democrats Robert Kastenmeier from Wisconsin and James Roosevelt from California, the oldest son of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Raskin soon became the secretary for the Liberal Project, a group of House liberals, organized by Kastenmeier and Roosevelt into a liberal leadership group. As the secretary, Raskin linked the House members with notable intellectuals, including sociologist David Riesman, historian H. Stuart Hughes, and former finance advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, James Warburg.

In 1961, Raskin became McGeorge Bundy's assistant on national security affairs and disarmament as a member of the Special Staff of the National Security Council. In 1962, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to an 18-nation disarmament conference in Geneva.

Tensions with Bundy led to Raskin’s reassignment in the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget), where he continued his service on the Presidential Panel on Education. On the panel, Raskin wrote papers on the consequences of technology and the need for democratic education and scientific research.[1]

The Institute for Policy Studies

In 1963, Raskin left government service, and with Richard Barnet, a State Department official in the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, created an independent institution, outside of government, to critique official policy.

Much of Raskin’s initial work with IPS focused on opposing the Vietnam War. He co-authored the Vietnam Reader with Bernard Fall in 1965, which was used in teach-ins across the country. In 1968, he was indicted—along with William Sloane Coffin, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Michael Ferber, and Mitchell Goodman—for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. The group became known as the "Boston Five". In the case, Telford Taylor, prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, served as the defense attorney for Raskin. Not long after his acquittal, Raskin published the book Washington Plans an Aggressive War with Barnet and Ralph Stavins. These two books would begin Raskin’s critique of the "national security state", a term he coined, which he would continue to assess critically in future works.

With the publication of his book Being & Doing in 1971, Raskin advocated the theory of "social reconstruction". Raskin's thinking was largely influenced by the work of American pragmatist John Dewey, French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, and the politics of the New Left. According to Library Journal, Raskin “foresees a peaceful process of non-Marxist reconstruction that will replace authoritarianism and the status quo with politics of the people and a redefined social ethic.”

In 1977, after conducting a first study of budget and its spending priorities, 56 members of Congress, led by Congressional Black Caucus Dean John Conyers, requested that IPS undertake a deeper analysis of the federal budget. Raskin directed the project, which led to the publication of the 1978 book The Federal Budget and Social Reconstruction. In the 1980s, Raskin became a leader in the anti-nuclear movement as the Chair of the Sane-Freeze, now Peace Action, campaign. He also worked with labor leaders to organize the Progressive Alliance, a coalition of 16 labor unions and 100 public interest groups that laid out a progressive alternative political agenda.

Raskin serves as a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, in addition to teaching at George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration and serving on the editorial board of The Nation magazine. He also advises the Congressional Progressive Caucus and conceptualized the network of local elected officials that evolved into the Institute for Policy Studies’ Cities for Peace project, which has coordinated hundreds of city council resolutions against the Iraq War.

Raskin’s most recent scholarship includes serving as the editor of a series of books laying out Paths for the 21st Century. The goal of this project is to generate ideas and proposals, across disciplinary lines and founded upon Raskin's notion of "reconstructive knowledge", which catalyze citizen action and help other scholars and activists pursue a progressive basis for a new society.

Personal life

Raskin has been married twice. In 1957, he married author Barbara Bellman from Minneapolis.[2] They had three children: Erika Raskin Littlewood, Jamie Raskin and Noah Raskin.[2] They divorced in 1980.[2] Barbara went on to write the novel "Hot Flashes" and later married author Anatole Shub.[2] He currently resides in Washington, DC with his wife, Lynn Randels Raskin with whom he has one child Eden Raskin.[3] He also has nine grandchildren. Raskin continues in his passion of classical music, releasing his first piano recording Elegy for the End of the Cold War in 2004.

Raskin is the nephew of Max Raskin, a Milwaukee politician who later served as a state judge.[4]

Books

Legacy

A collection of personal and professional papers related to Raskin is maintained by the Special Collections Research Center of George Washington University. The collection includes correspondence, biographical information, essays, lecture notes, and materials related to the Institute for Policy Studies. The materials date from 1952 to 2013.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Raskin, Marcus and Robert Spero. “Ahead of History: Marcus Raskin and the Institute for Policy Studies.” The Four Freedoms Under Siege: The Clear and Present Danger of Our National Security State. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, p. 277.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Los Angeles Times: "Barbara Raskin; Novelist Wrote About Female Friendships" July 25, 1999
  3. ↑ The Four Freedoms under Siege: The Clear and Present Danger from Our National Security State by Marcus Raskin and Robert Spero November 30, 2006 | p.275
  4. ↑ "Milwaukeean Raskin Has Served Presidents". The Milwaukee Journal. 6 January 1968. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Folder Inventory to the Marcus Raskin Papers, 1952-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University
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