Turbo Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy

They call it the free market, but that is shorthand for very much more than freedom to buy and sell. What they celebrate, preach and demand is private enterprise liberated from government regulation, unchecked by effective trade unions, unfettered by sentimental concerns over the fate of employees or communities, unrestrained by customs bariers or investment retrictions, and molested as little as possible by taxation. What they insistently demand is the privatization of state-owned businesses of all kinds, and the conversion of public institutions, from universities and botanic gardens to prisons, from libraries and schools to old-age homes, into private enterprises run for profit. What they promise is a more dynamic economy that will generate new wealth - while saying nothing about the distribution of any wealth old or new.They called it the free market, but I called it turbo capitalism because it is so profoundly different from the strictly controlled capitalism that flourished from 1945 until the 1980s, and that brought the sensational novelty of mass affluence to the peoples of the United States, western Europe, Japan and of all other countries that followed in their paths.