Capitalism, Alone

The  world has largely adopted capitalism, but clear distinctions exist between “liberal capitalism” and “political capitalism.” 

Despite all the dissimilarities among countries and populations, most working-age adults around the world spend their waking hours trying to make money, as businesspeople or wage earners, in decentralized market economies with privately owned means of production. In other words, the world is now more or less a capitalist one. Globalization has delivered on its promises to many, and countries outside the West, mostly in Asia, have integrated into global supply chains. As a result, their incomes are converging with those of the developed world.

Although the street-level experience of capitalism is now nearly universal, large differences remain in countries’ political systems and their governments’ involvement in their economies. Nations with strong democratic traditions, where a separate judiciary upholds the rule of law, practice “liberal capitalism” (LC). Other countries, especially the ex- or nominally communist states, demand less defined democratic accountability of their political...