The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
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- ¥2,200
発行者による作品情報
From the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, a magnificent reckoning with how and why the marriage between democracy and capitalism is coming undone, and what can be done to reverse this terrifying dynamic
Martin Wolf has long been one of the wisest voices on global economic issues. He has rarely been called an optimist, yet he has never been as worried as he is today. Liberal democracy is in recession, and authoritarianism is on the rise. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are threatened, even in democracy’s heartlands, the United States and England.
Around the world, powerful voices argue that capitalism is better without democracy; others argue that democracy is better without capitalism. This book is a forceful rejoinder to both views. Even as it offers a deep, lucid assessment of why this marriage has grown so strained, it makes clear why a divorce of capitalism from democracy would be a calamity for the world. They need each other even if they find it hard to life together.
For all its flaws, argues Wolf, democratic capitalism remains far and away the best system for human flourishing. But something has gone seriously awry: the growth of prosperity has slowed, and the division of its fruits between the hypersuccessful few and the rest has become more unequal. The plutocrats have retreated to their bastions, where they pour scorn on government’s ability to invest in the public goods needed to foster opportunity and sustainability. But the incoming flood of autocracy will rise to overwhelm them, too, in the end.
Citizenship is not just a slogan or a romantic idea; it’s the only idea that can save us, Wolf argues. Nothing has ever harmonized political and economic freedom better than a shared faith in the common good.
This wise and rigorously fact-based exploration of the epic story of the dynamic between democracy and capitalism concludes with the lesson that our ideals and our interests not only should align, but must do so, for everyone’s sake. Democracy itself is now at stake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The alliance between democracy and free market capitalism is breaking down, thus opening the door to antidemocratic populism, according to this scattershot manifesto. Financial Times associate editor Wolf (The Shifts and the Shocks) surveys the growth of populist, xenophobic, and illiberal politics in the West, blaming these developments on upheavals of globalization, rising inequality, and economic insecurity, and a corrupt "rentier capitalism" rigged for corporate elites who focus on tax avoidance and inflating share prices instead of productive investment. Exploiting these stresses is a disingenuous right-wing "pluto-populism" that woos working-class voters abandoned by the "Brahmin Left," which fixates on identity politics and challenging traditional values. Wolf's analysis of political economy is often trenchant and packed with facts and figures that he distills into pithy prose. ("When frightened and insecure, humans go angrily tribal.") He also discusses a grab bag of policy options for shoring up and reconciling democracy and capitalism, from strengthening welfare benefits and instituting a land tax to establishing time-limited "citizen juries," chosen by lottery, to look into "specific contentious issues." Elsewhere, Wolf's diagnoses and solutions run counter to his calls for moderation, as when he compares the Republican Party's obedience to Trump to the Nazis' "Führerprinzip" and suggests banning anonymous commenting online. This mixed-bag zigzags between astute and overwrought.
