The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Description

A magnificent reckoning of how and why the marriage between democracy and capitalism is coming undone – now updated with a new post-script: “The Great Undoing”

We are living in an age when economic failings have shaken faith in global capitalism. Political failings have undermined trust in liberal democracy and in the very notion of truth. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are being strained and rejected, even in democracy's notional heartlands.

Around the world, democratic capitalism, which depends on the determined separation of power from wealth, is in crisis. Some now argue that capitalism is better without democracy; others that democracy is better without capitalism.

This book is a forceful rejoinder to both views. It analyses how the marriage between capitalism and democracy has become so fraught and yet insists that a divorce would be an almost unimaginable calamity. Martin Wolf, one of the wisest public voices on global affairs, argues that for all its recent failings – slowing growth, increasing inequality, widespread popular disillusion – democratic capitalism, though inherently fragile, remains the best system we know for human flourishing.

Wolf's urgent new postscript, 'The Great Undoing' argues that America under Trump is heading the march away from liberal democracy towards a fusion of corrupted capitalism with authoritarianism. At home and abroad Trump has undermined institutions and abandoned US commitments to democratic liberties. Nations still committed to free elections, free markets and civil and political rights must now work even harder to keep the light of personal and political freedom shining. It will be a long and hard struggle to undo the damage the Trump administration has done and is still doing.

Capitalism and democracy are complementary opposites: they need each other if either is to thrive. Wolf's superb exploration of their marriage shows us how citizenship and a shared faith in the common good are not romantic slogans but the essential foundation of our economic and political freedom.