krebscycle

Crouch sees the history of democracy as an arc. In the beginning, ordinary people were excluded from decision-making. During the 20th century, they became increasingly able to determine their collective fate through the electoral process, building mass parties that could represent their interests in government. Prosperity and the contentment of working people went hand in hand. Business recognised limits to its power and answered to democratically legitimated government. Markets were subordinate to politics, not the other way around.

The realm of real democracy — political choices that are responsive to voters’ needs — shrinks ever further

At some point shortly after the end of the Second World War, democracy reached its apex in countries such as Britain and the US.[from]

Farrel cites this bullshit approvingly when all the deep research he needs to do to refute it can be done by going to see a movie: 42. What kind of Democracy did African-Americans experience “shortly after the end of the Second World War”? Women?

Clearly “ordinary people” means “white men” to a sadly large number of  liberal/left intellectuals even here in  2013. But it’s even worse then that: the “left” apparently now cannot remember works like “Power Elite” by Mills. Instead it is lost in a haze of Truman era nostalgia based on God knows what. You can’t find a path forward if you are lost in delusions about the past.