Classical liberalism regarded universal suffrage as a mortal threat to property. So what explains the advent of liberal democracy, and how stable is the marriage between representative government and the continued rule of capital? Social theorist Göran Therborn presents a global panorama of the historical development and contemporary malaise of liberal democracy. People across all continents think inequality is a 'very big problem'. Even the Davos World Economic Forum says it is worried. And yet capitalist states don't respond. Inequality and the Labyrinths of Democracy maps the social fractures that have opened up in the world's major economies since the author's landmark 1977 article 'The Rule of Capital and the Rise of Democracy', an empirical exploration of the diffusion of liberal democracy across the OECD. In the burgeoning literature on liberalism and democracy, this is an unmissable example of original Marxist scholarship. Book jacket.