Capitalism and democracy, in short, are not two modules, like an engine and a steering system, to be combined or not depending on their technical compatibility. They are both, individually as well as in their respective combination, the outcome of specific configurations of classes and class interests as evolved in a historical process driven, not by intelligent design, but by the distribution of class political capacities. Thus post-war democratic capitalism was not a selection by skillful social engineers or concerned citizens from a range of less optimal alternatives, but a historical compromise between a then uniquely powerful working class and an equally uniquely weakened capitalist class that was as never before on the political and economic defensive – which was true in all capitalist countries at the time, among the winners of the war as well as the losers. [...]