What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity

Daron Acemoglu

From Daron Acemoglu, 2024 Nobel laureate in economics and coauthor of Why Nations Fail, an ambitious and expansive inquiry into the biggest story in global politics over the last hundred years: the rise and fall of liberal democracy.

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Video: Daron Acemoglu describes the motivation for his new book

Book review: An MIT economist exposes liberalism’s self-inflicted wounds

Read Julia Cartwright's review of What Happened to Liberal Democracy? in The Washington Post.

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What People Are Saying

This book makes a powerful case for rebuilding Roosevelt-like ‘working-class liberalism.’ A very important work and a must-read.

Thomas Piketty

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Daron Acemoglu is one of the most brilliant and insightful thinkers I’ve ever known. His particular genius is being able to look at impossibly complex problems and see right to the heart of what matters. This book is a tour de force that left me feeling more optimistic about the future than I have in a long time.

Steven Levitt

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Freakonomics

Daron Acemoglu is arguably the greatest economist of our generation. He argues that tackling the gigantic economic divide is essential to renew liberalism itself. His call for a working class liberalism is a needed shot in the arm for a governing philosophy that has appeared tired and ineffective compared to the energetic demagoguery of our time.

Ro Khanna

Member of Congress and author of Progressive Capitalism

Why has liberal democracy, after being so successful at promoting prosperity for most of the 20th century, failed in recent years? How can ignorant people be made useful? Why does the average American now have many fewer friends than a few decades ago? How does the University of California at Berkeley resemble early Christianity and Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution? Questions such as these drew millions of readers to Daron Acemoglu’s previous books. They pepper this newest book of his. Millions more readers will now treasure his thoughtful proposed solution to the most important question of modern democracy.

Jared Diamond

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel

This urgent book reminds us that the path charted by technology is not destiny, it is a moral and political choice. We can let AI replace and devalue human labor, ultimately taking away democracy as we know it. Or we can induce the tech oligarchs to develop these new tools in ways that empower workers and lead to shared prosperity. It won’t come easily, but the problem is less that algorithms have a mind of their own, than, more prosaically the greed of elites and their grip on the system. In these unsettled times, Daron Acemoglu forces us to reckon with our very human responsibility to stand up for (and with) the less powerful.

Esther Duflo

2019 Nobel laureate in Economics

Invites us to think about the challenges of inequality even in a time of widespread material comfort. … There’s no denying the urgency of the conversation.

Boston Globe

"75 of the best books this summer"

Has liberal democracy failed? Many think so, but not Daron Acemoglu. In this elegant and deeply informed book, he explains why liberalism is worth saving despite today’s widespread skepticism. Indeed, it must be saved, and he details what we need to do. The argument is both necessary and inspiring.

Angus Deaton

2015 Nobel laureate in Economics

Stop whatever you are doing and read this book. American democracy is on fire, and Daron Acemoglu has not only figured out why this happened, but he also knows how we can find a better future – through understanding how the economy really works and changing the path of innovation to create more good jobs. A must read for anyone interested in technology, economics, politics, sociology, and the future of the world.

Simon Johnson

2024 Nobel laureate in Economics and Former Chief Economist, International Monetary Fund

Combining economic, historical and philosophical perspectives, Daron Acemoglu not only gives us an outstanding analysis of why the liberal democratic dream has faded since its effulgence in the 1990’s; he also offers an energizing account of how, built around a range of values, the vision can be recruited in support of a shared prosperity, a vibrant community and a technology serving the public good. This is a book, perhaps the book, for our time.

Philip Pettit

L.S. Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values, Princeton University

Daron Acemoglu wants liberalism to focus less on identity politics and more on shared prosperity, less on social engineering and more on equipping workers to flourish in the age of AI. One of the most creative economists of our time, Acemoglu argues that the direction of new technologies is not a fact of nature but a question for democratic citizens to decide. His ‘working-class liberalism’ would recall liberalism from its technocratic tendencies and make it an energizing force for solidarity and freedom.

Michael Sandel

Author of The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?

The title of this book poses the key question of governance for our era. Problems with the status quo are unignorable, but we have learned that the alternatives to liberal democracy are better at getting elected than at governing. We desperately need coherent visions for a liberal democracy of the 21st century, and in these pages Acemoglu lays one out with clarity, conviction, and nuance.

Steven Pinker

Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and bestselling author of Enlightenment Now

One of the best economists of our age takes a close and penetrating look at the political crisis of liberal democracies. As thought-provoking as it is insightful, informed and incisive, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned about politics, power and populism in the twenty-first century.

Joel Mokyr

2025 Nobel laureate in Economics

In social science we have seriously neglected the ideational and philosophical bases of our institutions and public policies. This book is a major paradigm shift.

James Robinson

2024 Nobel laureate in Economics

Acemoglu provides a sharp, unsentimental diagnosis of the structural failures destabilizing liberal democracy today. This is a necessary and precise roadmap for navigating the institutional crises ahead. Acemoglu clearly shows the future that begins after ‘the end of history.'

Ece Temelkuran

Author of How to Lose a Country

News + Upcoming Events

News

MIT News: Retooling to help democracy revive

Aug 26, 2026

Media Coverage

News

The Big View: An economist’s plan to salvage liberal democracy

Aug 25, 2026

Interview

News

BBC Newsnight: Daron Acemoglu on whether the UK is “ungovernable” and where Britain has “gone wrong”

Aug 21, 2026

Interview

News

Bloomberg: Liberals of the World Unite — Against Anti-Liberals Left and Right

Aug 18, 2026

Media Coverage

Podcast

AI Skeptics: Liberal Democracy in the AI Era (with Daron Acemoglu)

Jul 3, 2025

Event Recording

About the Author

Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor at MIT. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Why Nations Fail, The Narrow Corridor, and Power and Progress. He is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal, the BBVA award, the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Follow Daron on X: @DAcemogluMIT

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From Daron Acemoglu, 2024 Nobel laureate in economics and coauthor of Why Nations Fail, an ambitious and expansive inquiry into the biggest story in global politics over the last hundred years: the rise and fall of liberal democracy.

Buy Now

What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity

Daron Acemoglu

Where to Buy

Video: Daron Acemoglu describes the motivation for his new book

Book review: An MIT economist exposes liberalism’s self-inflicted wounds

What People Are Saying

News + Upcoming Events

About the Author

Press

Get Your Book Today