"Invariably Compete with Each Other Because They Are So Intertwined"

"If they fail to address the problem of growing inequality, liberal meritocratic capitalist systems risk journeying down another path—not toward socialism but toward a convergence with political capitalism. The economic elite in the West will become more insulated, wielding more untrammeled power over ostensibly democratic societies, much in the same way that the political elite in China lords over that country. The more that economic and political power in liberal capitalist systems become fused together, the more liberal capitalism will become plutocratic, taking on some features of political capitalism. In the latter model, politics is the way to win economic benefits; in plutocratic—formerly liberal meritocratic—capitalism, economic power will conquer politics. The endpoint of the two systems will be the same: the closing ranks of a privileged few and the reproduction of that elite indefinitely into the future."

Branko Milanovic at Foreign Affairs explains the "Clash of Capitalisms."