John Keane — Capitalism and Democracy [part 3]

Part two of this series on capitalism and democracy introduced the unusual idea of ‘democracy failure’. Instead of seeing democracy as the hapless victim of capitalist markets, as Marxists and others have typically done in the past, it examined the way market failures happen when the power-humbling mechanisms of monitory democracy are not applied to capitalist markets. This third part extends the point. It probes Jane Mayer’s recent fine book Dark Money to understand how democracies such as the United States are not only ruined when the wealthy try to buy their way into political power, but also why plutocracy is preparing the way for further market failures.…

The Conversation
Capitalism and Democracy [part 3]
John Keane | Professor of Politics, University of Sydney