Thirty some years ago Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis asked a provocative question—have democracy and capitalism come to a parting of the ways? Bowles very question was contrary to the mindset of the times. Milton Friedman, whose work has set the agenda for two generations of mainstream economists, had argued that only free market capitalism could buttress democracy. Indeed, market capitalism was more basic than democracy, for it was the foundation of the latter. Markets are a form of dollar voting, with citizens free from interference to cast their dollar ballots. Friedman did recognize the existence of “social democratic” states, but argued that they were an unstable, transitional society. Either their economies would become more market oriented and thus sustain democracy or their economies would become more statist and evolve toward Soviet style societies.
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