The Democratic Marketplace: How a More Equal Economy Can Save Our Political Ideals

Summary

Democracy has been hollowed out by capitalism. A narrow view of markets and their aims now dominates thinking about democracy itself. Citizens are ignorant of the deep principles of self-governance, having long since adopted a facile equation between democracy and voting as a consumer choice. Lisa Herzog argues that democracy is still possible, but only if democratic values get embedded in everyday experience―including economic experience. That requires new ways of thinking about markets and their goals.

The Democratic Marketplace theorizes the foundational structures of a democratic economy, in which markets are not just tools for maximizing profit via exploitation and extraction. To this end, employees are empowered to participate in corporate governance. Economic disparities are curbed so that citizens can negotiate their inevitable differences on a truly equal footing. And while a democratic economy need not eschew growth, it does renounce today's growth-at-all-costs expectations, instead balancing growth with goals like ecological sustainability and the preservation of time outside of work.

These are not utopian dreams, Herzog contends. The proposals that follow from the theory of democratic economics are already being tested around the world. And the shift in social norms that they necessitate is already under way.