ABSTRACT
John Locke, one of the founding philosophers of Anglo-American democracy and an ancestor of neo-liberalism, believed the state was formed as a contract signed by property owners to protect their rights against the propertyless masses. The restrictions upon government power, imposed by capitalist democracy, mean that much of the responsibility for maintaining society falls upon private citizens. The rights promised by capitalist democracy limit state authority, not private hegemony. In a democracy, most people will accept life as it is because they believe it is of their own making. In a crisis when order collapses, the state can declare an emergency and suspend the rights democracy grants. If democracy is in danger of failing to serve this purpose, other governmental forms may be tried. In Germany in the early 1930s, when the Weimar Republic was on the brink of falling and socialism seemed possible, many industrialists and bankers preferred to abandon democracy and turn to the Nazis.
