The 20th century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialized West, with widespread popular support for both free markets and representative elections.
Today, that political consensus appears to be breaking down, disrupted by polarization and income inequality, widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and insurgent populism.
Tracing the history of democratic capitalism over the past two centuries, Carles Boix explains how we got here—and where we could be headed, says a review on the Princeton University Press website.
Boix looks at three defining stages of capitalism, each originating in a distinct time and place with its unique political challenges, structure of production and employment, and relationship with democracy.
He begins in 19th-century Manchester, where factory owners employed unskilled laborers at low wages, generating rampant inequality and a restrictive electoral franchise.
He then moves to Detroit in the early 1900s, where the invention of the modern assembly line shifted labor demand to skilled blue-collar workers.
Boix shows how growing wages, declining inequality, and an expanding middle class enabled democratic capitalism to flourish.
