Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed
A specter is haunting Europe and America: the specter of anti-democratic, right-wing nationalism. This has finally exposed as ill-based the astonishingly widely shared belief that unleashing capitalism will, sooner or later, lead societies to democratic politics. It's nothing more than the big liberal myth.

Krishnan Nayar explores the history of six major pioneers of modernity—Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia and Japan— from the seventeenth century's Cromwellian revolution to Donald Trump's election, via the Age of Darwinian Capitalism: the pre-Second World War, pre-consumerist, pre-welfare state capitalism of severe economic instability and a penurious working class. Nayar shows that, in this period, capitalist industrialization was far more likely to lead to modernized right-wing autocracy than democracy, which got a chance thanks simply to fortunate circumstances in a few countries.

Capitalism only underpinned democracy in the post-war period due to transient factors: the existence and character of the post-1945 Western welfare systems owed far more than is admitted by most historians to the challenge posed by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The return of large-scale, extremist right-wing politics should not, therefore, come as a surprise. As autocratic China grows in strength, and Russia returns to expansionism, can democracy be rescued from a capitalism of dire instability and inequality?
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Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed
A specter is haunting Europe and America: the specter of anti-democratic, right-wing nationalism. This has finally exposed as ill-based the astonishingly widely shared belief that unleashing capitalism will, sooner or later, lead societies to democratic politics. It's nothing more than the big liberal myth.

Krishnan Nayar explores the history of six major pioneers of modernity—Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia and Japan— from the seventeenth century's Cromwellian revolution to Donald Trump's election, via the Age of Darwinian Capitalism: the pre-Second World War, pre-consumerist, pre-welfare state capitalism of severe economic instability and a penurious working class. Nayar shows that, in this period, capitalist industrialization was far more likely to lead to modernized right-wing autocracy than democracy, which got a chance thanks simply to fortunate circumstances in a few countries.

Capitalism only underpinned democracy in the post-war period due to transient factors: the existence and character of the post-1945 Western welfare systems owed far more than is admitted by most historians to the challenge posed by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The return of large-scale, extremist right-wing politics should not, therefore, come as a surprise. As autocratic China grows in strength, and Russia returns to expansionism, can democracy be rescued from a capitalism of dire instability and inequality?
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Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed

Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed

by Krishnan Nayar
Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed

Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God That Failed

by Krishnan Nayar

Hardcover

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Overview

A specter is haunting Europe and America: the specter of anti-democratic, right-wing nationalism. This has finally exposed as ill-based the astonishingly widely shared belief that unleashing capitalism will, sooner or later, lead societies to democratic politics. It's nothing more than the big liberal myth.

Krishnan Nayar explores the history of six major pioneers of modernity—Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia and Japan— from the seventeenth century's Cromwellian revolution to Donald Trump's election, via the Age of Darwinian Capitalism: the pre-Second World War, pre-consumerist, pre-welfare state capitalism of severe economic instability and a penurious working class. Nayar shows that, in this period, capitalist industrialization was far more likely to lead to modernized right-wing autocracy than democracy, which got a chance thanks simply to fortunate circumstances in a few countries.

Capitalism only underpinned democracy in the post-war period due to transient factors: the existence and character of the post-1945 Western welfare systems owed far more than is admitted by most historians to the challenge posed by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The return of large-scale, extremist right-wing politics should not, therefore, come as a surprise. As autocratic China grows in strength, and Russia returns to expansionism, can democracy be rescued from a capitalism of dire instability and inequality?

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781787389496
Publisher: Hurst
Publication date: 04/15/2023
Pages: 464
Product dimensions: 8.80(w) x 5.87(h) x 1.59(d)

About the Author

Krishnan Nayar (full name Radhakrishnan) has written on international affairs and world history for The Times Literary Supplement, Times Higher Education, the New Statesman, The Political Quarterly and Dagens Nyheter (Sweden). He has also worked for the BBC World Service. Long a Londoner, he now lives in Vancouver.
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