Analizan el impacto del sistema capitalista sobre las instituciones democráticas

Get an introductory Jacobin subscription for just $20

L ibertarian thinkers like Milton Friedman like to say that capitalism not only gave birth to democracy but also is the ideal economic system to complement democracy. But while capitalism may have created the conditions for democracy, it’s actually the main obstacle to securing full democratic rights.

On this latest episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber and Melissa Naschek examine the worker struggles central to the rise of democracy and why, in a system built around profit, the ruling class opposes it. Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here.

There’s been a lot of discussion on the state of democracy, in particular in the United States but also around the world. People are very concerned about how stable democracy is in the modern capitalist world. So today, I’d like us to look at the big-picture relationship between capitalism and democracy.

The true nature of the relationship between capitalism and democracy is an absolutely central issue. The Left has historically taken it up as one of its central questions, but so has the Right.

If you look at Milton Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom, which is one of the classics of modern neoliberal thought, Friedman made a very strong argument for the connection between capitalism and democracy. In many ways, he was mirroring certain kinds of Marxist arguments when he said that capitalism is not only consistent with democracy but that it’s also the best possible system for democracy. And he was contrasting it with the Soviet Union.

When you compare liberal democracies with the Soviet Union, it’s an easy case for Friedman to make. …