Skilled people in endeavors from singing to software find that, like baseball's free agents, they can command once-unimaginable salaries if they exploit the market. The changes are found in unlikely places. In Kansas, the state hires private contractors to find homes for foster children, paying a fixed per-child fee to provide an incentive for prompt placement. Interestingly, the Department of Agriculture beat IBM and two other companies. To even ask the question at this moment seems a heresy.
Capitalism is triumphant.
Market forces have spread to every corner of the globe. National boundaries seem to be dissolving as goods and information move freely and companies like Daimler-Benz and Chrysler, once the very symbols of nationalism, merge. Yet here in the U.S., still the cutting edge of capitalism, the early stirrings of backlash against the market are in sight. They can be seen most clearly in recent reactions to managed health care and profit-minded hospitals. But they can be seen elsewhere, too.