Marcus Raskin

Marcus Goodman Raskin (April 30, 1934 – December 24, 2017) was an American progressive social critic, political activist, author, and philosopher. He was the co-founder, with Richard Barnet, of the progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He was also a professor of public policy at The George Washington University’s School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Early life and education Raskin was born in Milwaukee, the second son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His parents, Ben Raskin and 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 piano performance at the Juilliard School under Rosina Lhévinne and Lee Thompson. He abandoned a career in piano to study at the University of Chicago. There Raskin studied under 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 Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts in 1954 and from the University of Chicago Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1957. Career 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.