This debate ran from 1 December 2006 and has now finished
There are many different, and often conflicting, viewpoints on the relationship between democracy and capitalism, and we hope that you will join the debate on this subject.
Download and read the Democracy and Capitalism booklet available from Friday 1 December.
Some of the main issues include:
- What are the connections and conflicts between democracy and capitalism?
- What are the linkages given that they frequently appear together?
- Are authoritarian capitalist regimes, like that in China, proof that as Lord Daherndorf points out, ‘a capitalist world would not necessarily be a free world’ ?
- How should we regard the relationship between capitalism and democracy in an age of globalisation?
- Are the necessary conditions for capitalism more likely to be present in democratic societies than non-democratic ones?
- Is the most important aspect of this debate the effects of global capitalism, most particularly the sustainability of the world’s resources, the challenges arising from climate change and whether current institutions are up to the task of dealing with these challenges?
- How can national and international institutions bring some accountability – and where needed, some control – to the effects of global capitalism?