
How compatible are democracy and capitalism? - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/06/11/how-compatible-are-democracy-and-capitalism
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allthatglitters
"Democracies" are inherently despotic (see de Toqueville) and despots despise
capitalism. A limited republic (lower case here) promotes equitable wealth.

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Svip
Capitalism works, because democracy makes it palatable. Without democracy,
capitalism would surely have collapsed before us. It's how some socialists
consider social democrats their true enemy, as they have prolonged the
existence of capitalism, through incremental change making it more palatable.

In essence, in the immediate aftermath of the bourgeois revolutions of England
and France, lord and serf were simply replaced by capitalist and labourer.
Often to a point where they became indistinguishable. Sure, in a capitalist
society, compared to a feudal society, your ownership of production matter
more to circumstance than to nobility.

Or at least, that's the sales pitch.

So if democracy keeps capitalism artificially alive, is capitalism doing the
same to democracy? That's harder to answer. But if capitalists keep on
automating their production to the point where there are no labourers left,
then who is to pay for the products they produce?

Marx and Engel may believe that capitalists were creating the very force to
bring them down, but they may not be the labourers, but rather the robots with
which they replaced the labourers.

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js8
I agree, but I think you mean "palatable" not "palpable".

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Svip
You are correct, and so I have corrected the error. English will forever
remain my second language.

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nsgoetz
FWIW As a native speaker, I think your English is great, and I have seen
native speakers do worse. It’s nothing to take for granite ;)

