The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is a 1982 book by the philosopher Michael Novak, in which Novak analyzes the theological assumptions, spirit, values and intentions of democratic capitalism. Novak defines democratic capitalism as a pluralistic social system, distinct from both the unitary state of traditional society and the modern socialist state, differentiated into three distinct yet interdependent power centers, a political sector, an economic sector and a moral-cultural sector, in which democracy needs the market economy and both need a pluralistic liberal culture. He contrasts this against modern socialism, which he argues has contracted from a robust utopian program into a vaguer idealism about equality, citing the liberation theology of Latin America as a notable example of that criticism.