Balancing Act

Panic about the crisis of democracy is everywhere. The study of populism has become a cottage industry. Illiberal democracy positions itself as the alternative to undemocratic liberalism. But what is it that is forcing that juxtaposition to a head at this current moment? Why is it that limitations on popular sovereignty are articulated in the language of liberalism? In the end what is at stake here, at the heart of the liberal rights regime, is the system of accumulation based on private property. In other words, the problem—the original and primary wedge driven between democracy and liberalism—is capitalism. Nevertheless, much of the current discussion around the crisis of democracy avoids this conclusion. It instead talks blandly of globalization. Or it proffers quick fixes for inequality and exclusion without examining the mechanisms that systematically generate both. So it is refreshing to find two analysts—Barry Eichengreen, a distinguished economic historian, and Robert Kuttner, a leading public intellectual of the American left—who do not flinch from the seriousness of the challenge.

Adam Tooze reviews Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? by Robert Kuttner and The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era by Barry Eichengreen.