There is no such thing as a Free Market Economy, it is a myth which has been propagated by the rich and powerful who would make themselves ever richer at the expense of the poor. A free market can exist only in the rarified air of economic theory, and in practice is totally impossible. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence that in the normal capitalist system prosperity will always attract investment away from the less prosperous, and therefore unless the market starts with everyone being dealt the same amount, as if in some parlour game, those who already have advantages will gradually take everything from those with less.
The proponents of the Global Economy would say that that's all part of the game; that it encourages competition, which in turn leads to better productivity, better standards, etc. But the patent result is visible everywhere : a gradual whittling away of all competition by the most powerful organisations, until all the world's trade and economy end up in the hands of very few. Not only have we lost all real competition, but the Global Economy has become a GLOBAL TOTALITARIANISM. People may try to fool themselves, and governments may try to fool their people that there are such things as national sovereignty, democracy, free trade, but these are all virtually extinct.
We have been led to fear religious fundamentalism, as a terrible threat to our freedoms of speech and lifestyle, yet CAPITALIST FUNDAMENTALISM, the Free Market Myth, has crept up insidiously and overtaken us, and is even now in the process of invading every aspect of our lives. Thus around the world airline and other transport companies cut back on safety to improve profits - we get major accidents; hospitals cut back on staff and equipment - with dangerous results; food producers make cutbacks all along the line to lower costs and increase their investors' wealth - and the results are BSE, e-coli, etc., and doubtless more to come.
The fat-cats who sit smugly reaping in these obscene profits, may think that their wealth can protect them, that it can isolate them from the poverty it creates, but at some point their world has to interact with the rest of Humanity; at some point they must rely on those whom they may push too far; at some point the poor may be infected by yet another world-threatening disease, which will recognise no boundaries of money and class; at some point this New Economy will surely implode, as all empires do in the end, particularly those which are based on injustice.
