Capitalism and Democracy: Crisis and Co-Existence, 1873-Present

Catalog description

What is capitalism? What is democracy? And what is the relationship between the two? Socialist critics, including revolutionaries like the German communist Rosa Luxemburg and reformists Sidney and Beatrice Webb, have long argued that capitalism is a despotic regime. But by the 1940s, new defenders of capitalism—known as “neoliberals”—began to tie political freedoms to free markets. Then in the crucible of the Cold War, modernization theorists began to argue that the democratization of Europe and the U.S. had been caused by rising levels of wealth. The U.S. then mobilized this historical logic to defend free-markets abroad, in its fight to make the world safe for democracy against the Communist East. Ever since the 2008 crisis, however, the continued co-existence of democracy and capitalism no longer seems to be a given in a world fractured by growing inequalities and the rise of far-right populist politics. Rather than approaching the question of democracy and capitalism’s potential (in)compatibility from a theoretical angle, we will look at the question historically: when have democracy and capitalism been at odds? What historical conditions have underpinned their mutual destruction? We will pay special attention to the case of the first global depression of the 1870s-1890s and the rise of the new right in Western Europe, as well as the rise of fascism during the 1930s. On the other hand, when and how have democracy and capitalism mutually co-existed—and even flourished? We will take a good hard look at the institutions and ideas undergirding the post-World War II golden age of “democratic capitalism” and the expansion of welfare-states. This first-year seminar will introduce students to major thinkers, texts, and debates in the history of political economy and the social sciences during the long 20th century, including Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Beatrice and…