How Capitalism Is Killing Democracy, by Robert B. Reich, Foreign Policy (free w/reg.): Free markets were supposed to lead to free societies. Instead, today’s supercharged global economy is eroding the power of the people in democracies around the globe. Welcome to a world where … government takes a back seat to big business. …

Conventional wisdom holds that where either capitalism or democracy flourishes, the other must soon follow. Yet today, their fortunes are beginning to diverge. Capitalism … is thriving, while democracy is struggling to keep up. China … has embraced market freedom, but not political freedom. Many economically successful nations-from Russia to Mexico-are democracies in name only. They are encumbered by the same problems that have hobbled American democracy in recent years, allowing corporations and elites … to undermine the government’s capacity to respond to citizens’ concerns. …

[T]hough free markets have brought unprecedented prosperity to many, they have been accompanied by widening inequalities…, heightened job insecurity, and environmental hazards such as global warming. Democracy is designed to allow citizens to address these very issues in constructive ways. And yet a sense of political powerlessness is on the rise among citizens in Europe, Japan, and the United States… In short, no democratic nation is effectively coping with capitalism’s negative side effects.

 

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