Martin Wolf: THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM

Robert Misik in conversation with Martin Wolf


THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM





Western economies are in a state of crisis and permanent stress.
The rich are getting richer, the poor are not. Inflation leads to
loss of purchasing power, faltering growth to loss of wealth. The
responses to the multiple crises are erratic. Around the world,
powerful voices argue that capitalism is better without
democracy; others argue that democracy is better without
capitalism. Martin Wolfs new book „The crisis of democratic
capitalism“ 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. „People expect the economy to deliver reasonable
levels of prosperity and opportunity to themselves and their
children. When it does not … they become frustrated and
resentful.“


Citizenship is not just a slogan or a romantic idea; it’s the
only idea that can save us, Wolf argues. Democracy itself is now
at stake.


 Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator
at the Financial Times


Robert Misik, Author and Journalist


Martin Wolf is the associate editor and chief
economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He is the
recipient of many awards for financial journalism, for which he
was also made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in
2000. His previous books include Fixing Global Finance and Why
Globalization Works.