Free markets – Liberty’s loss

Two-thousand and eight was not the best of years for capitalist culture. The world financial system took a substantial hit starting in October, there is widespread fear that this will lead to a lengthy recession and government intervention in troubled economies has become not only publicly acceptable, but actively encouraged by many. The free market is more often these days viewed as a fount of greed than as a mechanism for the efficient regulation of human relations. As for that other facet of capitalist culture, liberty — whether political, cultural, social, or otherwise — it has been knocked well down the agenda in inter-state relations. That can be put at the door of the Bush administration’s failure to move much beyond rhetoric in its so-called “freedom agenda” for the Middle East, but more broadly because of the widespread skepticism the administration elicited. The world is happy to see George W.