ABSTRACT
“Democratic capitalism” suggests a set of harmonious and mutually supportive institutions, each promoting a kind of freedom in distinct realms of social life. This chapter shows that capitalism and democracy are not complementary systems. Rather they are sharply contrasting rules regulating both the process of human development and the historical evolution of whole societies: the one is characterized by the preeminence of economic privilege based on property rights, the other insists on the priority of liberty and democratic accountability based on the exercise of personal rights. Where democratic institutions have taken root, they have often expanded and deepened. Where a democratic idiom has become the lingua franca of politics, it has often come to encompass unwonted meanings. In the course of its development, democracy thus may challenge, indiscriminately and irreverently, all forms of privilege.
