Capitalism correlates only tendentially with parliamentary democracy, never necessarily.
Evidence
Other approaches recognize that there may well be “tendential combinations”: combinations which, while not prescribed in the fully determinist sense, are the “preferred” combinations, sedimented and solidified by real historical development over time. Thus, as is clear from, say, the Latin American case, there is no “necessary correspondence” between the development of a form of capitalism and the political forms of parliamentary democracy. Capitalism can arise on very different political foundations. Engels himself showed how capitalism can also harness and adapt very different legal systems to its functions. This does not prevent us from arguing that the advent of capitalism has frequently (tendentially) been accompanied by the formation of bourgeois parliamentary democratic regimes: or even from accepting Lenin’s percipient observation that parliamentary democracy provides “the ‘best possible’ political shell for capitalism.” We must, however, see these “combinations” as historically specific, rather than specified a priori: as “laws of tendency”—which can be countermanded by “counteracting tendencies.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 624 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
Related
- Capitalism has no necessary correspondence with any particular political or legal form (similarity 0.96)
- Capitalism has no necessary correspondence with parliamentary democracy (similarity 0.95)
- Capitalism can arise on very different political foundations without a necessary correspondence (similarity 0.95)
- Capitalism has no necessary political form but tends toward parliamentary democracy (similarity 0.93)
Broader Connections
- Capitalism has no necessary correspondence with any particular political or legal form
#corroborates(0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 624