Retooling to help democracy revive

Nobel Prize winning economist Daron Acemoglu has released a new book exploring the decline of liberal democracy and its ties to economic shifts. As MIT News tells it, Acemoglu argues that deindustrialization and the rise of computers since the nineteen eighties have hollowed out the middle class, leaving many workers alienated from democratic institutions. He suggests that reviving democracy requires a return to "working-class liberalism," a coalition focused on shared prosperity and public services. The book, titled "What Happened to Liberal Democracy?", examines how the gap between college-educated and blue-collar workers has fueled modern political polarization.

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