In this solo episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we step back from the daily news cycle to examine a question that has shaped the modern world: what is the relationship between capitalism and democracy?

For decades, we have been told that economic freedom and political freedom are two sides of the same coin—that the ability of capital to move freely, to invest, to accrue profits, is the mirror of the rights and liberties that citizens enjoy. This is one of the secular articles of faith upon which the Western world runs. But is it true?

I argue that it is not. And arguably, it has never been true.

We trace the history of this entanglement from the Cold War to the present. In the early years of the Cold War, faced with the seemingly unstoppable advance of communism, Western leaders—from Churchill to the architects of the emerging national security state—crafted a powerful narrative: whatever else communism was, it was antithetical to freedom. The Second World War had been fought as a war for freedom. The Norman Rockwell “Four Freedoms” posters were potent propaganda. And the sacrifices of that war became a powerful symbol, warning Western populations never to stray into totalitarianism again.

But freedom, as a concept, served mainly those who already had power to exercise it. It became a convenient stick—not just to beat communism with, but to beat the left’s various more moderate iterations across the democratic world. The cons