Building a future with unified citizens

Democracy and competitive capitalism make a difficult, but precious, marriage of complimentary opposites,” writes Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economic commentator of the Financial Times London, in his book on ‘The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism’. In turn, he argues that competitive democracy induces politicians to offer policies that would improve the performance of the economy and the welfare of the people. The first concern of democratic states is (and should be) the welfare of its citizens. The alternative, he says, is an unaccountable rule or the iron cage of custom — both are recipes of stagnation and repression. Owing to the critical global importance of the issue, the 2024 Nobel Economic Prize went to three researchers to explore why global inequality exists today, especially in countries dogged by corruption and dictatorship. Simon Johnson, James Robinson, and Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu were commended for their work on how “institutions are formed and affect prosperity