So much for the 'free' market. Now what?

[CHIMO]

In 1944, a Viennese-born economic historian named Karl Polanyi wrote that the world was at a turning point.

The events of war and depression, Polanyi said, showed that the self-regulating free market was no longer viable. Its cycles of boom and bust were too destabilizing.

As a result, he wrote in The Great Transformation, nations faced a choice between authoritarianism and democracy. But even democrats would have to realize that their economies required regulation, needed to be "embedded" in society so as to meet social aims.

As it turned out, Polanyi was ahead of his time. But the financial crisis now unfolding around the world suggests that he was not that much ahead.

http://www.thestar.com/article/512006

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. So much for the 'free' market. Now what?

I would say step one is to take a good hard analytical look at our system:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912