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Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy

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Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy examines the fraught relationship between capitalism and representative government. It explores how democracy, once a popular demand for social justice, has morphed into a controlled power structure amid rising global inequality. Drawing on a major new essay, a historical survey of democratization worldwide, and a landmark analysis of OECD economies, Göran Therborn argues for a 'disruptive democracy' led by radical social movements like the climate strike to challenge political stagnation.
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Ideal for scholars and students of political science, sociology, and economics, as well as activists and readers interested in democracy, inequality, and social movements.

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A global panorama of liberal democracies from a renowned social theorist.

A global panorama of liberal democracies from a renowned social theorist.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Classical liberalism regarded universal suffrage as a mortal threat to property. So what explains the advent of liberal democracy, and how stable today is the marriage between representative government and the continued rule of capital?

Across every continent, people think inequality is a ‘very big problem’. Even the Davos Economic Forum and the OECD say they are worried. And yet capitalist states don’t respond. How has democracy been transformed from a popular demand for social justice into a professional power game?

To dispel our worsening political malaise, Göran Therborn argues, requires a ‘disruptive democracy’ of radical social movements, such as the climate strike. Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy opens with a major new essay mapping the social fractures of the present era. There is also a compact historical survey of worldwide patterns of democratization and a landmark analysis of the OECD economies, ‘The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy’, originally published in New Left Review and collected here in book form for the first time.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Praised as a tour de force by Colin Crouch, the book is celebrated for its analytical clarity, common sense, and deep command of comparative data (Eric Hobsbawm). Therborn is recognised as one of the world’s leading analysts on the topic, offering valuable intellectual tools (Chris Maisano). The work tackles fundamental questions about democracy's resilience to inequality and inspires hope for a more egalitarian future (Donatella della Porta).

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781788738996

Publisher: Verso Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 24 November 2020

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Verso Books

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 201g

Pages: 208

About the Author

Göran Therborn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. His works have been published in at least twenty-four languages and include The Killing Fields of Inequality, From Marxism to Post-Marxism?, Between Sex and Power, and What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?

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  • What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?
    In his new book, Göran Therborn—author of the now-standard comparative work on classical sociology and historical materialism, Science, Class and Society—looks at successive state structures in an arrestingly fresh perspective. Therborn uses the formal categories of modern system analysis—input mechanisms, processes of transformation, output flows—to advance a substantive Marxist analysis of state power and state apparatuses. His account of these...
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  • From Marxism to Post-Marxism?
    In this succinct and panoramic work—both stimulating for the specialist and accessible to the general reader—one of the world's leading social theorists, Göran Therborn, tackles the question of the trajectory of Marxism in the twentieth century and its legacy for radical thought in the twenty-first. Addressing the history of critical theory from the contemporary vantage-point characterised by postmodernism, post-Marxism and...
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  • Cities of Power
    In this brilliant, very original survey of the politics and meanings of urban landscapes, leading sociologist Göran Therborn offers a tour of the world’s major capital cities, and the forces that have shaped them. Through a global, historical lens, and with a thematic range extending from the mutations of modernist architecture to the contemporary return of urban revolutions, Therborn questions...
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