"Whether twenty-first-century Americans can again revitalize politics, styme plutocracy, and confine market theory to commerce depends on how successfully the critical distinctions between capitalisam and democracy can be brought back into focus. Markets, in short, must be reestablished as adjuncts, not criteria, of democracy and representative government.

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As the twenty-first centry gets underway, the imbalance of wealth and democracy in the United States is unsustainable, at least by traditional yardsticks. Market theology and uneclected leadership have been displacing politics and elections. Either democracy must be renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to cement a new and less democratic regime - plutocracy by some other name. Over the coming decades, American exceptionalism may face its greatest test simply in convincing the American people to continue to believe in its comfort and reassurance.