Rethinking the concept of freedom in contemporary capitalism

In a forthcoming book, Branko Milanović identifies four ‘troublesome features’ in ‘meritocratic liberal capitalism’.* These are the rising share of capital income in total income, which undermines meritocracy; the very high concentration of capital income, which runs counter to the objective of a ‘property-owning’ democracy; the rising association of high capital and labour incomes in the same people or families, which exacerbates inequality and hinders attempts to curb it; and the polarisation of society, shown by the declining share and purchasing power of the middle classes, which destabilises democracy and threatens to turn it into a plutocracy or a populist regime.