Inequality, as Jeffrey Winters reminds us, is very old— indeed, so far, perennial. Democracy is rather arrestingly new, mass democracy especially so. It is an increasingly common perception that economic inequality must be brought under control for democracy to realize, or recover, its potential. The argument developed here suggests something further: that robust democracy is necessary if wealth is to realize its potential for social benefit. Indeed, democracy must be able to intervene in the definition, creation, distribution, and use of wealth precisely to make the benefits of wealth real. A political scheme of social provision, and political limitations on the scope of inequality, are the most plausible means to prevent growing wealth from undercutting its own benefits. This idea is not extremist: it simply states the logic of the mid-century social-democratic accommodation that established a measure of security and a pattern of widely shared economic growth. It does, however, insist on the priority of that political logic. The free play of the market will not deliver the goods that market-led growth in wealth is conventionally celebrated for producing. Only democracy can do that.
Kettle Logic