Ian McKay — Are we witnessing the death of liberal democracy?

"Liberal democracy" is an oxymoron. What passes for liberal democracy is dying owing to its internal oppositions. Liberalism and democracy are incompatible. Being based on property, liberalism is naturally biased toward oligarchy

Property ownership and property rights are dominant in liberalism and this leads to plutocracy. Ian McKay cites C. B. Macpherson on this. The problem arises from the basis of liberalism in property to the bias toward capitalism as an economic system. Capitalism is the favoring of capital, both real and financial, over the other factors, labor (people) and land (environment). Interest and profit are based on rent extraction, so capitalism tends toward rent seeking.

C. B. Macpherson needs to be rediscovered along with Hyman Minsky, Karl Polanyi, and Kenneth Boulding.

The Conversation

Are we witnessing the death of liberal democracy?

Ian McKay, Director of the Wilson Institute for Canadian History, McMaster University