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This book serves as an introduction to the ongoing political debate about the relationship of capitalism and democracy. In recent years, the ideological battles between advocates of free markets and minimal government, on the one hand, and adherents of greater democratic equality and some form of the welfare state, on the other hand, have returned in full force. Anyone who wants to make sense of contemporary American politics and policy battles needs to have some understanding of the divergent beliefs and goals that animate this debate. In Capitalism and Democracy , Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., examines the opposing sides of the free market versus welfare state debate through the lenses of political economy, moral philosophy, and political theory. He asks: Do unchecked markets maximize prosperity, or do they at times produce wasteful and damaging outcomes? Are market distributions morally appropriate, or does fairness require some form of redistribution? Would a society of free markets and minimal government be the best kind of society possible, or would it have serious problems? After leading the reader through a series of thought experiments designed to compare and clarify the thought processes and beliefs held by supporters of each side, Spragens explains why there are no definitive answers to these questions. He concludes, however, that some answers are better than others, and he explains why his own judgement is that a vigorous free marketplace provides great benefits to a democratic society, both economically and politically, but that it also requires regulation and supplementation by collective action for a society to maximize prosperity, to mitigate some of the unfairness of the human condition, and to be faithful to important democratic purposes and ideals. This engaging and accessible book will interest students and scholars of political economy, democratic theory, and theories of social justice. It will also appeal to general readers who are seeking greater clarity and understanding of contemporary debates about government's role in the economy.

In my introduction to this book, I said that the dispute over the proper relationship between capitalism and democracy actually consists of three distinct arguments: one about the relationship between free markets and the achievement of economic prosperity, another about the relationship between market outcomes and the moral imperatives of justice and fairness, and a third about whether the ideals of a good democratic society are best achieved by market transactions plus the minimal state. In the preceding three chapters, we have looked at some of the best and most relevant arguments on both sides of these three disputes. On

In this chapter, we shall look at the debate about the right institutional strategy to create the best possible economic outcomes for a society. The laissez-faire or “classical liberal” claim is that leaving all members of a society entirely free to allocate their productive efforts and their economic assets as they choose will produce both the greatest efficiency in the short run and also the greatest advances in economic productivity in the long run. Reform liberals are generally willing to agree that societies wanting to be successful economically need to give a large role to the operation of the free

The burden of the previous chapter was to explain why there are no slam-dunk arguments when it comes to determining the best way to maximize a country’s prosperity, the morally correct way to allocate a society’s resources, or what the ideal democratic society looks like. We cannot say for certain exactly what policies and arrangements maximize prosperity because of the frailty of our knowledge when it comes to determining all the cause-and-effect relationships that determine economic outcomes in today’s complex advanced economies. We cannot establish with certitude the most just distribution of social resources because of our entrapment in a

Much of the debate about the relationship between capitalism and democracy turns on competing assessments of the economic performance and the fairness of a free-market economy. Does the capitalist marketplace produce optimal results in straightforward economic terms? Does capitalism maximize prosperity? What are the distributive consequences of relying entirely upon market outcomes? Do these outcomes conform to a persuasive conception of social justice? We have considered some of the major competing answers to these questions in the previous two chapters. People often assume that a similar pattern characterizes the larger question about the compatibility of market institutions with the constitutive

In his book, Bruce Miroff provides a captivating account of the ill-fated 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. Indeed, given Miroff's access and diligence in interviewing many of the major players, this is likely to be the definitive study of that campaign for the foreseeable future. To read it is to relive the events of a crucial episode in the career of American liberalism—and also to relive the emotions of hope, anguish, frustration, and dismay that attended them. In addition to providing such a wonderful narrative and judicious assessment of this campaign, Miroff also wants to argue that these events marked the onset of and contributed in some ways to what he calls “the identity crisis of the Democratic Party.”

A review essay on a book by Bruce Miroff, The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. An electronic version of this article can be accessed via the internet at http://journals.cambridge.org

Recent debates over American liberalism have largely ignored one way of understanding democratic purposes that was widely influential for much of American history. This normative conception of democracy was inspired by philosophical ideas found in people such as John Stuart Mill and G. W. F. Hegel rather than by rights-based or civic republican theories. Walt Whitman and John Dewey were among its notable adherents. There is much that can be said on behalf of Richard Rorty's recent argument that American liberals would be well advised to recover and reclaim the heritage of Whitman and Dewey; but some additions and emendations to his construction of these champions of democracy would strengthen his case.

Renowned theorists address the interconnections between those who engage in political struggle and those who study it. Political theorists typically define political action in terms of rational potential rather than conflict, and for this reason neglect the partisan nature of political experience. This volume redresses this neglect, focusing on the interrelated questions of whether the task of political theory is to find some means of containing partisan politics and whether political theory is itself separate from partisan politics. Each section of the book corresponds to one of three ways of conceiving the optimal or necessary relationship between political theory and partisan political struggle. The first section considers the extent to which partisan politics requires constitutional consensus and the degree to which such a consensus requires correct theoretical underpinnings. The second focuses on the compatibility of theoretical deliberation with partisan politics, and the third on the possibility that political theory is itself necessarily a form or means of partisan engagement. The end result is a theoretically diverse but focused debate on this important but neglected subject. Contributors include William E. Connolly, Mary G. Dietz, Adolf G. Gundersen, John G. Gunnell, Donald S. Lutz, Edward Bryan Portis, Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Ruth Lessl Shively, and Thomas A. Spragens, Jr.