This article is going viral, having been shared on Xenosystems, Slate Star Codex, and elsewhere: Has Western-style democracy become too expensive for capitalism?

This short article offers a lot to unpack.

The central reason why Western democracy is in decline is that its capitalist bedfellow can no longer afford the financial demands that full-blown democracy is placing upon it. History has shown that capitalism can adapt, consorting with a variety of political systems in the past 5,000 years. Looking ahead, it will probably find another political host to aid its survival. Democracy — capitalism's host over the past century — is far more brittle. …

Much ink has been spilled on the significance of 2016's one-two populist punches as thrown by Brexit then Trump. What does it mean for the West? Most analysis concludes that parts of the West are having second thoughts about globalisation, and there is undoubted — if only partial — merit in this assessment.

Donald Trump won the US presidential election by convincing disgruntled former factory workers in the critical swing Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania that factories translocated from the US to Mexico and China had "stolen" middle class jobs from Middle America. A few factories have migrated, though the main effect of Asian and Mexican competition has been to limit wage increases much more than "steal" jobs.

There is a trend these days for authors on supposedly reputable sites (Bloomberg, Financial Times, and The Economist) to make these grand proclamations but with scarcely any proof to support them. Technically, all you need are two data points to call something a trend, which in this case is Brexit and Trump. The Financial Times, purportedly reputable newspaper, is going down the same path as Zero Hedge and Rolling Stone by using sensationalism and over-generalizations for cheap ad clicks at the cost of accuracy and journalistic integrity.

Anther possibly, as I discuss here, is that these results don't signify anything significant, due to the high degree of randomness. Half the county is going to vote 'left', the other 'right', so it comes down to a small number of undecided voters. The author ignores the French and Dutch elections and how Theresa May lost seats, all of which puts a dent in the thesis.

There is growing anti-democratic sentiment online, but it will take longer for this to manifest in real life.

The second is that the centre of economic gravity is shifting back from West to East. The connection between these two mega trends is that, although the East has flirted with democracy, its new champions are not democratic nor are there indications that they are likely to be, at least in the sense that the West regards the concept. Only India's ascendancy might yet give Western-style democracy a second chance and a new lease on life.

Again with the overgeneralizing and baseless suppositions. According to what evidence? There is scant evidence of such a shift. Of the 2000 largest companies, 540 of them are based in the US, whereas only 200 are in China. The biggest and most influential companies in the world–Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Exxon, Tesla, and Walmart–were all founded in America. Maybe the author is referring to China's manufacturing, which has long since eclipsed that of the United States.

What does the author mean by 'too expensive'? This can mean two things: costs of living being to expensive for Americans, which for things such as rent, healthcare, and tuition, costs have exceeded inflation, and or, it can mean 'expensive' in terms of excessive entitlement spending due to ill-conceived social and immigration policies.

As McKinsey has noted, almost 70 per cent of households in the 25 most advanced economies — some 560m people — have seen their real incomes stay flat or fall since 2005.

Yet despite stagnant real wages for most workers, Americans have a lot of purchasing power, especially compared to the United Kingdom. (Related: Stagnant Inflation-Adjusted US Wages: Putting Things in Perspective) Americans, even the poorest, have a lot of purchasing power. In most counties, standards of living for the poor and middle class are much worse. Look at Walmart and how much cheap stuff there is there–a week's worth of an American's paycheck buys more economic utility than for someone living in Britain. The British pay a higher percentage of their income for heating, utilities, transportation, and other essential goods.

In fact, these surpluses have been insufficient since before WWII. But the stop-gap measures of Keynesian-inspired budget deficits — the real glue of democratic capitalist cohabitation — have made up the necessary differences even if these debt-financed transfers inexorably added to overall national debt.

This passage alluding to socialism via democracy, the result being an increasing amount of debt to pay for entitlement spending–due to politicians supporting more immigration to expand the electorate,