Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century

Review\n"Many on the right argue that democracy subverts capitalism. Many on the left argue that capitalism undermines democracy. In this brilliant book, Iversen and Soskice argue compellingly that both views are wrong."―Martin Wolf, Financial Times\n"A unique and provocative analytical framework."―M. Kerem Coban, LSE Review of Books\n"Impressive."―Robert Boyer, Journal of Economics\n"This is an impressive, bracing, and agenda-setting book. Democracy and Prosperity is a landmark work in comparative political economy."―Paul Pierson, coauthor of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper\n"In this magisterial account, Iversen and Soskice demonstrate that contemporary advanced capitalism is based on the presence of skilled and educated workers and geographically rooted ecologies of organizations, people, and institutions. They show us why populism is currently challenging advanced capitalist democracies, but also why we have many reasons to be optimistic about the future."―Michael Storper, author of Keys to the City: How Economics, Institutions, Social Interaction, and Politics Shape Development\nA groundbreaking historical analysis of how global capitalism and advanced democracies mutually support each other\nIt is a widespread view that democracy and the advanced nation-state are in crisis, weakened by globalization and undermined by global capitalism. Torben Iversen and David Soskice argue that this view is wrong. In fact, advanced democracies are resilient and their enduring relationship with capitalism has been mutually beneficial. Iversen and Soskice show how democratic states continuously reinvent their economies through public investment in research and education, by imposing competitive product markets and cooperation in the workplace, and by securing macroeconomic discipline as the preconditions for innovation and the promotion of advanced sectors of the economy. Challenging the prevailing wisdom on globalization, Democracy and Prosperity reveals how advanced capitalism is neither footloose nor unconstrained―and how it thrives under democracy precisely because it cannot subvert it.