The fledgling democracy under the German Weimar Republic after World War I soon collapsed into Nazi authoritarianism. Mid-20th-century scholars foretold that something like the fall of the Weimar Republic could happen again: the psychological tendencies underpinning a liberal and democratic culture could erode enough to topple society.
Now, many fear that a “Weimar moment” may be around the corner in the U.S.
“As long as Americans feel left out of the major decisions that are altering their lives, democracy will be in danger in this country. It’s not just about redistributing income or wealth. It’s about redistributing power. If we don’t do that, I think we’re running the risk of losing our democracy,” says SFI Professor Sam Bowles.
“It is true that wealth inequality leads to polarization, which destabilizes liberal democracy,” explains SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Katrin Schmelz, who is also a professor at the Technical University of Denmark. ”But how we interact in our daily life with economic institutions — in our jobs, for example — also matters. This shapes how we evolve as citizens, and how a democratic culture may evolve.”
Bowles and Schmelz co-organized a working group at SFI from March 2–4, 2026, to tackle a sweeping question: “Is Liberal Democracy Sustainable?” The discussion focused largely on the role of economic institutions.
At the working group, participants examined the formation (or erosion) of liberal-democratic values as a complex system that evolves over time, with dynamic interactions between actors. Discussion topics included how parents who follow orders at their jobs are more likely to want to raise obedient children (rather than independent and autonomous children), and how the history of Athens illuminates a common pattern: democracy, followed by authoritarianism, followed by reinvented democracy.
For Schmelz, who was born in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the path forward is also personal.
“I grew up in an authoritarian country, so I worry deeply about what we’re seeing in the world,” she says. “But discovering these long historical patterns, that democracy is not an eternal fire but can transition and learn from the past, leaves me more optimistic.”
Schmelz and Bowles got the idea for the working group last year, while writing a chapter for a forthcoming handbook on the subject and organizing a meeting on how climate policies and people’s values coevolve.
“Our hierarchically organized economy, in which few people are exercising much autonomy, doesn’t look like fertile ground for the cultivation of democratic culture. Liberal democracy may have to save itself by becoming more economically democratic, in the sense of ordinary people having a greater voice in their work and daily lives,” says Bowles.
Schmelz and Bowles plan to translate lessons from the working group into a new research agenda over the next decade. Along with SFI President David Krakauer and other scholars, they also joined a public panel discussion at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on “Crossroads Democracy” — SFI’s first 2026 Community Lecture — on April 14. A recording of the lecture is available on SFI's YouTube channel.
This working group was supported under SFI's Emergent Political Economies Grant provided by the Omidyar Network.