POL242Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ernest Gellner, Liberal Democracy, The Communist Manifesto
Document Summary
The future of history: can liberal democracy survive the decline of the middle. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the ongoing crisis of the euro are both products of the model of lightly regulated financial capitalism that emerged over the past three decades. Yet despite widespread anger at wall street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing american populism in response. Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the rightwing tea party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move. several reasons for this lack of left-wing mobilization = is a failure in the realm of ideas. For the past generation, the ideological high ground on economic issues has been held by a libertarian right.