The present article outlines a network of general concepts the author deems essential for the reflection on the crisis of capitalism and the crisis of democracy. First, two meanings of the concept of crisis, strong or weak, are distinguished as they are both commonly used in their two main fields of application, namely the study of the economic and the political systems. On the one hand, short term and/ or sector-based economic crises are to be distinguished from the great crises of the capitalist system as that of 1929 and that begun in 2007; on the other hand, the conjunctural political crises, such as government crises, are to be distinguished from the great crises that affect the same structure of democratic regimes. In both fields, the exceptional degree of intensity of the current crisis led some scholars to consider the possibility that the very survival of the capitalist economic system and democratic political system could be at stake today. Secondly, the meanings implied in the notions of capitalism and democracy are reconstructed according to the prevailing general interpretations of both. Marx thrust forward an interpretation of capitalism as a mode of production of material existence —namely a type of economic system— able to influence the structure of social and political institutions; according to the interpretation given by historians and sociologists such as Sombart, Weber and Pirenne, it is conceived as a form of civilization whose principles shape both the economic and the political system. Democracy, according to the classical interpretation of Kelsen and Bobbio, is conceived as a kind of regime defined by a complex of rules set for the political decision-making process in order to ensure collective self-determination. According to other conceptions, from Dewey to Habermas, it is conceivable as a way of life. The author encourages to use the notion in its meaning as form of government, and redefines the specific nature of modern democracy as a «democracy of individuals» in opposition to the «democracy of the people» as collective actor. Thirdly, the author reconstructs the notion of individualism, to which both capitalism and modern democracy are deeply interconnected; here the complex notion of liberalism as ideological and cultural expression of modern individualism is analyzed. In addition to the distinction between the two souls of liberalism —economic and political—, liberal individualism and democratic individualism are identified as having a common genesis, but also as potentially conflicting. Moving from an early analysis of Norberto Bobbio, the author reconstructs the theses of the neoliberal doctrine that endured as hegemonic over the last forty years, according to which democracy as such can be the key factor to the crisis of capitalism. Finally, the author indicates the main directions for a research program on the crisis of capitalism and democracy on the basis of the network of concepts drawn in the article. A general representation of the current crisis is also present through the words of Hegel on the decadence of the Roman Empire.