Neoliberalism, Expansion of Inequalities and Deconstruction of Democracy

Abstract

In democracies, the financialization of capital accumulation has implied low economic growth and increased political, income, and wealth inequalities. At the State level, it has led to the reduction of social welfare policies. These processes feed the crisis of democratic legitimacy. Considering neoliberal capitalism’s actors and interests, the paper aims to describe and interpret the tensions among three variables: democracy, inequality, and the pattern of capitalism. The hypothesis is that democratic commitment depends, to some extent, on political and socioeconomic equality. It is stated that the significant increase in inequality in neoliberal capitalism weakens the legitimacy of democracy and, in some countries, has stimulated the emergence of authoritarian leaderships. The main empirical basis are the United States and Brazil. A qualitative methodology with process tracing was used to describe the temporal behavior of qualitative variables aiming to explore causal inferences. The quantitative data are subordinated to the qualitative analysis.