Carles Boix and Sir Tim Besley on Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads

The twentieth century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialized West, with widespread popular support for both free markets and representative elections. Today, that political consensus appears to be breaking down, disrupted by polarization and income inequality, widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and insurgent populism. Tracing the history of democratic capitalism over the past two centuries, Carles Boix new book explains how we got here-and where we could be headed.

Carles Boix is the Robert Garrett Professor of Politics and Public Affairs in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In 2015, he published Political Order and Inequality, followed by Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads: Technological Change and the Future of Politics, the subject of our webinar, in 2019.

Sir Tim Besley is School Professor of Economics of Political Science and W. Arthur Lewis Professor of Development Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE. He is also a member of the National Infrastructure Commission and was President of the Econometric Society in 2018. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and British Academy. He is also a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2016 he published Contemporary Issues in Development Economics.

[mj]

You suggest there is no correlation between satisfaction and wealth distribution. One problem with this argument you admit : no knowledge of delay effects and the other: is it true that the gini only measures income distribution and calls it wealth so it is the case that although a gini index might not change the the differential wealth as ownership will continue to increase in all cases except perfect equality. On the delay question delays act like multipliers. Initially things that are not problematic build to a problem. So if the gini comment is right and delay effects are obvious to anybody that has ever experienced shortage the contention that dis-satisfaction is not in causal relation to wealth distribution is at best not proven and very likely wrong.