Quoted from Andrew The only real way to make capitalism work is democracy.

Not necessarily true.  Capitalism is an economic system and democracy is a political system and they have no dependency on one another.  A democratic govt can vote to have a socialist economic system and a communist govt can decided it is in the best interest of the public to have a capitalist economic system (look at what China is up to these days).

Quoted from mcornetto Not necessarily true.  Capitalism is an economic system and democracy is a political system and they have no dependency on one another.  A democratic govt can vote to have a socialist economic system and a communist govt can decided it is in the best interest of the public to have a capitalist economic system (look at what China is up to these days).

It's a fair point re: China's so-called 'State Capitalism' and an interesting discussion in and of itself.

My opinion is that democracy is the only real way to make capitalism work because democracy is - in theory, and unfortunately used as a pretext by neocons - the political system that allows for the requisite freedom to unleash the productive forces capitalism is capable of. So, I'd actually argue that whilst in terms of semantics they are, of course, two separate ideas/terms, in reality they coexist and that you can't have one without the other. That's what my interpretation of history tells me. Perhaps the future will show democracy can thrive in a non-capitalist economy, and capitalism will be able to thrive in a non-democracy. For the sake of clarity, I don't consider Scandinavia a socialist economic model, but an example of the flexibility of capitalism - if you look at how they run their economies, it's clasically capitalist. Of course, there is more than reasonable grounds for that to be debated.

Quoted from Andrew My opinion is that democracy is the only real way to make capitalism work because democracy is - in theory, and unfortunately used as a pretext by neocons - the political system that allows for the requisite freedom to unleash the productive forces capitalism is capable of.

And my question is that when China becomes the world's economic leader - as it is poised to become - will you still be singing that same song?

Quoted from mcornetto And my question is that when China becomes the world's economic leader - as it is poised to become - will you still be singing that same song?

It's a very interesting question, to be fair. It's a multi-faceted discussion, with lots of angles. India is really only comparable to China regards population, and it's interesting to explore the difference in growth between state capitalism and the more recognisable democratic - although notoriously rife with corruption - capitalism of India. Whilst it's inevitable China will eclipse the US in terms of its GDP, if and when, it overtakes the US in capita per head, that's when there's a tipping point and we can start to assess that wider question fully. It may well be that China will show there's a different path, but if that's to be on the basis of their human rights record, I'm fearful. Not that I want to irresponsibly build China up as a bogeyman, but I trust the verdict of the big charitable organisations that report these problems.

Quoted from Andrew It may well be that China will show there's a different path, but if that's to be on the basis of their human rights record, I'm fearful.

Not that China isn't worse, but the US isn't squeaky clean in this area.

Quoted from mcornetto Not that China isn't worse, but the US isn't squeaky clean in this area.

Completely agree.

Funnily enough (and vaguely relevant, I guess) I'm just about to crack on with episode 7 of the new season of Homelamd after just finishing episode 6. Now there's a show tackling tough issues head on. Episode 6 was pretty stunning, too.

Highly recommend giving this report a read: http://www.policy-network.net/publications/4292/Distributional-Conflicts-in-the-US-and-Europe (There's a clickable PDF download button next to the date).

This is essentially a Blairite think tank.