Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

by Robert Kuttner

Overview

“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.”—Heather McGhee, president of Demos

With a new Afterword

In the past few decades, the wages of most workers have stagnated, even as productivity increased. Social supports have been cut, while corporations have achieved record profits. What is going on? According to Robert Kuttner, global capitalism is to blame. By limiting workers’ rights, liberating bankers, and allowing corporations to evade taxation, raw capitalism strikes at the very foundation of a healthy democracy. Capitalism should serve democracy and not the other way around. One result of this misunderstanding is the large number of disillusioned voters who supported the faux populism of Donald Trump. Charting a plan for bold action based on political precedent, Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? is essential reading for anyone eager to reverse the decline of democracy in the West.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393609967
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	842 KB

About the Author

Robert Kuttner, cofounder and coeditor of the American Prospect, is a former columnist for BusinessWeek, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. He holds the Ida and Meyer Kirstein Chair at Brandeis University, and lives in Boston.

Table of Contents

Preface xv

1 A Song of Angry Men 1

2 A Vulnerable Miracle 26

3 The Rise and Fall of Democratic Globalism 49

4 The Liberation of Finance 74

5 The Global Assault on Labor 97

6 Europe's Broken Social Contract 121

7 The Disgrace of the Center Left 149

8 Trading Away a Decent Economy 180

9 Taxes and the Corporate State 212

10 Governing Global Capitalism 238

11 Liberalism, Populism, Fascism 253

12 The Road From Here 283

Afterword 310

Acknowledgments 317

Notes 321

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Publishers Weekly

"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."

New York Times Book Review

"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."

Heather McGhee

"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."

Booklist

"Timely and compelling."

Robert B. Reich

"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."

Ira Katznelson

"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."

Dani Rodrik

"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."

Joseph E. Stiglitz

"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."

Jacob S. Hacker

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.

Kirkus Reviews