The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

<b>Martin Wolf</b> is Chief Economics Commentator at the <i>Financial Times</i>. He was a member of the UK's Vickers Commission on Banking which reported in 2011. He holds an honorary doctorate at the London School of Economics and is an honorary Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford.<i> </i>He is a member of the International Media Council of the World Economic Forum<i>. </i>In 2000 he was awarded the CBE for services to financial journalism and in 2019 won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Gerald Loeb Awards. His books include <i>The Shifts and the Shocks</i> <i>Fixing Global Finance</i> and <i>Why Globalization Works</i>. <b>Martin Wolf has been an incisive commentator on economics and politics for a long time. This book is an excellent and thought-provoking synthesis of his views on democratic capitalism and how to fix it.</b> <b>Martin Wolf is one of the deepest thinkers of our times and his latest book is a must-read! He brilliantly analyzes the causes of current crisis of democratic capitalism and presents the reforms needed to successfully rejuvenate it. He rightly calls for a new alliance of reformed democratic capitalist states to protect global peace inclusive prosperity and the planet against plutocratic populism and tyranny. Hopefully his words will be carefully read and heeded.</b> <b>Martin Wolf is a great humanist and a sharp analytical mind. He unfurls here a bracing indictment of democratic capitalism and an inspiring defense of it. To defend the values of freedom and dignity democracy and capitalism must both be reformed. A necessary book- and a guide -- for our times</b> <b>Martin Wolf brings together many decades' worth of thought and analysis into this superb synthesis. An important guide for anyone seeking answers to the most difficult questions of our time.</b> <b>Martin Wolf is our wisest most acute and most experienced commentator. He has long been an optimist but no more. He believes that today's market economy is no longer compatible with a stable liberal democracy. As Plato long ago warned insecurity and fear can be the gateways to tyranny. Wolf's recommendations are smart and sensible and perhaps not too late. A must read for both optimists and pessimists.</b> <b>Martin Wolf has written the definitive account of what ails capitalism and democracy. This staggeringly erudite and beautifully written book is sure to become required reading for anybody who wants to understand how democratic capitalism slid into a deep crisis why it is worth rescuing and how to do so.</b> <b>The arrival of this book could not be timelier as the global economy darkens further. Who better than Martin Wolf with his masterful knowledge of history and understanding of economics to identify the twin threats of predatory capitalism and demagogic politics and to plot a narrow corridor to escape? It takes someone with a knowledge of the entire forest to isolate the rot at the base of the trees.</b> <b>Passionate alarmed wise: Martin Wolf has poured his soul into the book that may be recognized as his masterpiece. In it he confronts the disturbing truths dismissed by his own complacent generation and their consequences with which the young will contend.</b> <b><i>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</i> will reach a wide and powerful audience. It will be read by world leaders and CEOs. If it convinces some of them to change tack away from the plutocratic path that national and international economies are currently on then we should all be grateful.</b> <b>a cri de coeur</b> ... This book<b> impressively researched</b> is ... <b>a mine of information for anybody wanting to know about the forces driving the global economy in recent decades</b> ... Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others as Churchill once said. And the same is true of capitalism relative to other forms of economic organisation. Fixing both is the task. The book's power lies in Wolf's central perception and the scale of the canvas he uses to illustrate it. The problems he describes - inequality lack of social mobility slowing productivity gains the influence of money over politics disaffection with democracy - are familiar but by identifying them collectively as causes of the calamity he foresees he gives new urgency to the need to address them. Martin Wolf is one of the world's most influential economists ... His new book <i>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</i> is both his magnum opus and an explanation of his crisis of faith. ... Wolf argues that democracy and capitalism are complementary opposites: Opposites because capitalism depends on inequality of rewards while democracy depends on political equality complementary because they both enshrine the principle of individual choice. But in recent decades this marriage of opposites has been falling apart most importantly in the supposed standard-bearer of democratic capitalism the United States. ... a penetrating analysis of Western society's ills <i>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</i> draws on the wisdom accumulated over his distinguished career... The case he makes is authoritative and compelling. <i>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</i> will reach a wide and powerful audience. It will be read by world leaders and CEOs. If it convinces some of them to change tack away from the plutocratic path that national and international economies are currently on then we should all be grateful. Martin Wolf shines a light on the doom loop of democratic capitalism ... in his fine new book <p><b>From the author of <i>The Shifts and the Shocks</i> and one of the most influential writers on economics a reckoning with how and why the relationship between democracy and capitalism is coming undone </b><br><br>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.<br><br>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. 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.</p>