Adam Przeworski: Economics

“Marx may have erred in analyzing the nature of this conflict. Interests of workers and capitalists may not be irreconcilable under all circumstances, and workers may see the choice between capitalism and socialism differently depending upon the specific political and economic conditions under which they live.”

Adam Przeworski

Adam Przeworski and Michael Wallerstein, The American Political Science Review (Jun., 1982)

Nature , Dependency

“The simple answer to the question with which we began is that we do not know whether democracy fosters or hinders economic growth.”

Adam Przeworski

Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, The Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer, 1993)

Democracy , Question

“The conclusions are self-evident, so I just state them. Electoral winners and losers obey the results of democratic competition and thus democracy is sustained merely as a consequence of political forces pursuing their interests. Whether this explanation is sufficient or some cultural patterns are necessary for democracy to endure is just hard to tell, as is whether democracy can survive even when it is not supported by economic self-interest.”

Adam Przeworski

Chapter 5. "Why Do Political Parties Obey Results of Elections?" in Democracy and the Rule of Law (2003) edited by José María Maravall and Adam Przeworski

Democracy , Support

“If a Martian were asked to pick the most efficient and humane economic systems on earth, it would certainly not choose the countries which rely most on markets. The United States is a stagnant economy in which real wages have been constant for more than a decade and the real income of the bottom 40 percent of the population declined. It is an inhumane society in which 11.5 percent of the population, some 32 million people, including 20 percent of all children, live in absolute poverty. It is the oldest democracy on earth but also one with the lowest voting rates among democracies and the highest per capita prison population in the world. The fastest developing countries in the world today are among those where the state pursues active industrial and trade policies; the few countries in the world in which almost no one is poor today are those in which the state has been engaged in massive social welfare and labor market policies.”

Adam Przeworski

Source: Journal of Democracy. Vol. 3, Nr. 3 (1992), p. 46

Children , People , World , Democracy

“In general dictators have not done better at [economic] policies than democrats—far from it. Most dictators have ravaged their countries for personal gain. Scholars have asked whether democracy helps or hurts the economic growth of poor countries and despite many surveys, have come to no conclusive answer.”

Adam Przeworski

Source: Fareed Zakaria (2007) The Future of Freedom. p. 251

Democracy , Help , Hurt , Personality