A01=Krishnan Nayar
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Author_Krishnan Nayar
authoritarianism
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Capitalism
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JPH
Category=JPHV
COP=United Kingdom
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Democracy
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eq_society-politics
International
Language_English
liberalism
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Populism
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
rightwing
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781787389496
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 02 Feb 2023
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A spectre is haunting Europe and America: the spectre of anti-democratic, right-wing nationalism. This has finally exposed as ill- based the astonishingly widely shared belief that unleashing capitalism will, sooner or later, lead societies to democratic politics. It's nothing more than the big liberal myth.
Krishnan Nayar explores the history of six major pioneers of modernity-Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia and Japan- from the seventeenth century's Cromwellian revolution to Donald Trump's election, via the Age of Darwinian Capitalism: the pre-Second World War, pre-consumerist, pre-welfare state capitalism of severe economic instability and a penurious working class. Nayar shows that, in this period, capitalist industrialisation was far more likely to lead to modernised right-wing autocracy than democracy, which got a chance thanks simply to fortunate circumstances in a few countries.
Capitalism only underpinned democracy in the post-war period due to transient factors: post-1945 Western welfare systems owed their existence and character almost entirely to the challenge posed by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The return of large-scale, extremist right-wing politics should not, therefore, come as a surprise. As autocratic China grows in strength, and Russia returns to expansionism, can democracy be rescued from a capitalism of dire instability and inequality?
Krishnan Nayar (full name Radhakrishnan) has written on international affairs and world history for 'The Times Literary Supplement,' 'Times Higher Education,' the 'New Statesman,' 'The Political Quarterly' and 'Dagens Nyheter' (Sweden). He has also worked for the BBC World Service. Long a Londoner, he now lives in Vancouver.
