Books reviewed in this article: S. N. Afriat - The Market. Equilibrium, Stability, Mythology. Hazel Bateman, Geoffrey Kingston and John Piggott - Forced Saving: Mandating Private Retirement Incomes. Jagdish Bhagwati (ed.) - Going Alone - The Case for Relaxed Reciprocity in Freeing Trade. Boeri...

Starting from a discussion of Schumpeter's analysis of the relationships of capitalism, socialism and democracy, it is shown that, in a complex society, democracy is only compatible with a decentralized market economy with safe property rights. But in time democracy shows a tendency to weaken...