Capitalism, Democracy and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery

alph's Pretty Good Grocery, for those like me who miss popular culture allusions, is a fictional shop in the imaginary Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, a place invented by the humorist Garrison Keilor. Its slogan is 'If you can't get it at Ralph's, you can probably get along without it'. For political scientist John Mueller, this slogan sums up capitalism and democracy. They may not supply everything, but what they don't you can probably do without. This book has the feel of an American upper-year university academic textbook, copiously referenced (the bibliography runs for 26 pages), and clearly if uncolourfully written. It even has a summary of the book's propositions up the back, as if for an exam crammer. The textbook style is, however, very deceptive, because this book contains many original and unusual lines of argument alongside its synthesis of numerous other authors and arguments. Mueller has something to upset just about everyone with a view on democracy. There is currently much concern about an international decline in political trust and, in countries with voluntary voting, a drop in the numbers turning up to the polls. Mueller, by contrast, is relaxed, pointing out that apathy and widespread political ignorance are normal in democracies, and that apathy can be a good thing, as it often leads to tolerance. The worriers about political trust are often conservatives or leftists, but the views on democracy of thinkers that Policy readers would generally respect, such as Milton Friedman and Peter Berger, are also contradicted. They, amongst others, argue that capitalism is a precondition of democracy, because it creates many sources of competing power. History has provided exceptions to this rule. In Bulgaria, for example, they had several years of freedom of speech, free political organisations and fair elections, all while the state controlled most of the economy. Other theories of the preconditions of democracy, such as the spread of literacy or the presence of particular cultural values have also been falsified, as democracies have appeared in nations in which they were lacking. In Mueller's view, democracy exists when people are free to lobby and petition and governments are routinely responsive. Strictly speaking this does not even require all the political rights we normally associate with democracy, since women's interests have been greatly advanced by their lobbying even in times when they did not have the vote. The prospect of effective lobbying gives minorities …