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Capitalist Development and Democracy Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, John D. Stephens
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The prices of basic necessities skyrocketed. But if these stunning economic statistics make you think that so much capitalist development must also have brought more democracy to China, think again. The 32 years of development unravelled in an explosive manner. Who have exploited their connections to become rich and powerful, points to a China that has made the transition directly from communist dictatorship to crony capitalism, bypassing a democratic stage of development. What we are dealing with is not an economic crisis, but a period in which the normal functioning of the capitalist economy demands that the final remnants of democratic control, workers' rights and public services be abolished for the sake of profit. Joshua Kurlantzick writes of the As Western leaders, policy-makers, and journalists questioned whether their own systems had failed, Chinese leaders began to more explicitly promote their authoritarian capitalist model of development. Some proponents of capitalism (like Milton Friedman) emphasize the role of free markets, which, they claim, promote freedom and democracy. In the wake of the global economic crisis, and the dissatisfaction with democracy in many developing nations, leaders in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are studying the Chinese model far more closely. What happens is that just as capitalist development consists of a sequence of evolving stages which the social system internalises is habituated to them, so is the introduction and consolidation of democratic rule. In the second half of the 1970s, when rapid and stable economic growth came to a halt in the 'developed' world, the forces of capital intensified their attack on workers' rights that has not ceased to this day.