It is time to move beyond an economic model that is captive to the imperatives of the money world. The human future depends on finding more holistic approaches to dealing with poverty, unemployment, and social disintegration that give priority to meeting basic needs, restoring the bonds of community, and healing the planet. The idea is not to exclude the market or productive enterprise, but rather to assure that their function is consistent with the principles of equity, sustainability, and civic engagement. Advocates of the free market commonly argue that the market is the most democratic of institutions, because businesses prosper by responding to consumer choice. It is a disingenuous argument.
Democracy is based on the principle of one person, one vote.
The market functions on the principle of one dollar, one vote. Consequently, under conditions of unequal economic power, a society ruled by the market is a society ruled by those who have the most money-the antithesis of democracy. Further distortions result when huge global corporations acquire the power to manipulate cultural symbols and consumer demand through advertising and control of mass media. When tobacco companies set about to sell cigarettes to children they are not simply responding to an established demand, they are creating it. It is often forgotten that Adam Smith's classic treatise, The Wealth of Nations, explains that markets tend to favor the public good only under those conditions in which buyers and sellers are small, the ownership of capital is local, and there are no monopolies or trade secrets-conditions wholly different from those that prevail in our present global economy.