Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

by Robert Kuttner Narrated by Mike Chamberlain

Overview

Before and after World War II, a serendipitous confluence of events created a healthy balance between the market and the polity-between the engine of capitalism and the egalitarian ideals of democracy. Under Roosevelt's New Deal, unions and collective bargaining were legalized. Glass-Steagall reined in speculative finance. At Bretton Woods, a global financial system was devised explicitly to allow nations to manage capitalism. Yet this golden era turned out to be lightning in a bottle. From the 1970s on, a power shift occurred, in which financial regulations were rolled back, taxes were cut, inequality worsened, and disheartened voters turned to far-right, faux populism.



Robert Kuttner lays out the events that led to the postwar miracle, and charts its dissolution all the way to Trump, Brexit, and the tenuous state of the EU. Is today's poisonous alliance of reckless finance and ultra-nationalism inevitable? Or can democracy find a way to survive?

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

01/08/2018
Americans still struggling to comprehend the election of President Trump will find American Prospect coeditor Kuttner’s cogent analysis illuminating. His critique of the Clinton campaign, which echoes and expands on Mark Lilla’s controversial New York Times op-ed “The End of Identity Liberalism,” is woven into a much broader survey of recent trends—both national and international—that have put liberal democracy in retreat across the world. Kuttner links that development, and the related potential resurgence of fascism, to globalization, which writers such as Thomas Friedman generally view as an unmitigated good. The reality, as Kuttner sees it, is that the “deregulation of constraints on transnational movements of money, products, service and labor” changes “the political distribution of power domestically” and increases the “influence of elites” who support globalization. He builds his case methodically and in a manner accessible to lay readers without a background in economics, looking at how tighter governmental controls impacted powerful financial institutions over the past century. However, even those who share his perspective may not necessarily share his optimism that the Democrats will choose a progressive standard-bearer in 2020, or that such a candidate would prevail against Trump’s brand of populism. As such, Kuttner’s analysis is thought-provoking but not fully convincing. (Apr.)

New York Times Book Review

"A timely polemic against globalization and marketization.… [Robert Kuttner is]… something of a national treasure.… Kuttner has tirelessly poked holes in dominant economic narratives and consistently espoused a social-democratic populism that is looking much better than some of the alternatives these days."

Heather McGhee

"Democracy is no longer writing the rules for capitalism; instead it is the other way around. With his deep insight and wide learning, Kuttner is among our best guides for understanding how we reached this point and what’s at stake if we stay on our current path."

Booklist

"Using historical synthesis and reporting, [Kuttner] explores how [unfettered global finance’s] resurgence captured the political process and cut off policy approaches that could have protected the interests of workers and nations, leading to disillusionment with political institutions and the rise of ideological extremes. Kuttner’s call to recognize and fight this status quo doesn’t come with easy solutions, but it will inspire readers to think deeply about our complex and troubling times."

Robert B. Reich

"Timely and compelling."

Ira Katznelson

"Standing on the shoulders of Karl Polanyi, Bob Kuttner revives the lost art of political economy in this absorbing and important analysis of wild markets, assaults on labor, and profound changes to institutional rules."

Dani Rodrik

"Conventional wisdom has it that our income disparities and dysfunctional politics are the consequence of inexorable and uncontrollable developments in technology, market competition, and globalization. As Robert Kuttner argues in this superb book, they are instead the result of our own policy choices."

Joseph E. Stiglitz

"Kuttner brilliantly brings together two strands of thought: explaining both the economics and politics of global capitalism and how our society has abandoned core principles of fairness and equality. The rise of inequality helped pave the way for Donald Trump—a figure out of step with basic American values. Kuttner reminds us of the urgency with which we need to get back to a more just society."

Jacob S. Hacker

"Robert Kuttner combines economic acumen, a gift for narrative, and genuine passion in his persuasive new book. In his telling, the issue isn’t whether national economies should be open to foreign trade or finance. It’s whether the rules of the global economy are set up to benefit—ordinary citizens or merely economic elites."

Kirkus Reviews

2018-01-22
Democracy and the world's dominant economic system are at loggerheads. So argues American Prospect co-founder Kuttner (Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility, 2013, etc.) in this vigorous critique.The short answer to the titular question is…well, maybe, but probably not. By the author's account, the great successes of postwar capitalism were precisely those that expanded the civil and human rights and material well-being of ordinary people, the post-New Deal promise that labor would have a voice and that the social contract would allow access to health, education, and other public goods, all of which he describes as "a system of political economy, whose rules were drastically different from the usual rules of capitalism." Those "usual rules," Hobbesian and dog-eat-dog, have generated ever more inequality even as the financial system becomes both more internationalized and less regulated. At the same time, the "equalizing mechanisms" that allow children from poorer families to participate in the social system and become adults with at least some chance of success have become vastly weaker. These are all the result of not economic but political choices, Kuttner insists; as he writes, "nothing in the structure of the late-twentieth-century economy compelled a reversion to an unregulated nineteenth-century market," but that, effectively, is where we are. The author harbors no hope that the faux populism of Trump will yield any improvements for the 99 percent, and he suggests that even the most progressive of corporations are pleased with the deregulatory mood that reigns today, with the result that any chance of resuscitating democracy will require the involvement of "empowered citizens." To that end, he closes with a series of prescriptions for reform, including establishing programs for "green infrastructure on a serious scale" and re-establishing regulatory boundaries on the market.Capitalism as we know it today is anti-democratic—and not likely to relinquish power without a fight. A useful resource for setting agendas.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170185924
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos