To rescue democracy, we must revive the reforms of the Progressive Era

The playbook for taming industrial capitalism already exists. It's the essential starting point for reform today

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville offered a prescient warning for "the friends of democracy". In a chapter called "How Aristocracy Could Issue from Industry" he observed that industrial capitalism would create economic inequality between owners and wage-workers and divide them culturally, morally, and socially.

Related: Yes, contemporary capitalism can be compatible with liberal democracy | William Arthur Galston