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The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by Martin Wolf
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The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

by Martin Wolf

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The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism is the magnum opus of Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times. In the preface, he explains why he wrote the book: “In the middle of the eighth decade of my life, I see a long historical circle—a circle that includes not just my life but also those of my parents.” He goes on to tell the story of how his parents (one from Poland, one from the Netherlands) fled for their lives as the Nazis were taking over Europe. “The 20th was a century of monstrous dictators,” he writes. Unfortunately, “The dictators have returned.” He lays the blame for that firmly on economic problems, for while “economics is not everything…it is the foundation of almost everything.” The book covers Wolf’s assessment on most issues relating to politics and economics: voting systems, GDP, avoiding war with China, Univeral Basic Income, market concentration. As well as analysis he suggests solutions, advocating a Karl Popper approach of “piecemeal social engineering.”

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The book, according to the author

I think, pretty convincing evidence that the underlying rate of productivity growth in the economy, which is very closely related to the underlying rate of technical progress across the whole economy, has slowed in the last 10, 20, or 30 years from where it was in the middle of the 20th century. That means that average living standards are not rising as quickly as they were in the richer countries and that seems completely general. That’s a part of my recent book on democracy. Now there is some disagreement on this, but I think quite a lot of economists agree. We don’t agree fully on why it’s happened because that’s difficult, but we agree that it’s happened.

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