From Wolin,
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

At the critical moment when a volatile economy and widening classdisparities require a government responsive to popular needs, govern-ment has become increasingly unresponsive; and, conversely, when anaggressive state stands most in need of being restrained, democracyproved an ineffectual check. A public fearful of terrorist attacks andbewildered by a war based on deceit is unable to function as the rationalconscience of the American state, capable of checking the impulse toadventurismand the systematic evasion of constitutional constraints. Apolitics of dumbed-down public discourse and low voter turnout com-bines with a dynamic economy of stubborn inequalities to produce theparadox of a powerful state and a failing democracy.

How can economics not see that the political regime is the main product of the economy?