economy. what does this mean? in part, it means ensuring that our school system does a better job of bringing students to a level of “ functional literacy, ” and i will have more to say about this in a moment. but it also means ensuring that children have an opportunity to really understand how the economy works. based on my experience in russia, it is not that the russians that i worked with had not studied the theory of the market economy at university, but that they did not have the opportunity to experience at an early age how a market economy works, and to learn from that experience. dodge, d. 2003. “ human capital, early childhood development, and economic growth : an economist ’ s perspective. ” the great advantage that we in canada have is that most of us do understand intuitively how the market system works. that ’ s because we have had exposure to it while growing up, in one of two ways : as mini - entrepreneurs, delivering newspapers, cutting grass, or babysitting ; or as young employees, working at a fast - food joint, or packing and carrying out groceries at a supermarket. as mini - entrepreneurs, we learned that, if we delivered a wet newspaper, we wouldn ’ t get paid. if we didn ’ t show up on time for babysitting, we wouldn ’ t be called again. as young employees, we learned that, if we flipped the hamburger onto the floor, or if were rude to the customer, we would get fired. importantly, we also learned that there is a relationship between the quality of our service and remuneration. today, some of these “ early commerce ” experiences and learning opportunities for children are gone. for example, the morning paper is now delivered by adults who can get up at 3 a. m. and, in the interests of health and occupational safety, some canadian provinces have labour laws that prevent anyone under 16 years of age from even being on a construction site. because some of these “ early commerce ” experiences are gone, and because more are likely to disappear as technology changes, all of us, as parents, employers, and public policy - makers will have to keep thinking of ways to provide new opportunities for our youth to learn by doing. as parents, we can encourage our children to seek out “ early - commerce ” experiences. as employers, we can offer opportunities to teenagers, as interns or part - time workers. as educators, we can do more to integrate work experiences with

moving to, or have established, market - type economies. the debate over whether the state or the market is the more appropriate means of allocating resources has, in a sense, been decisively won by the market. the overriding question which now has to be posed is : who governs the market? this question must be answered both globally and nationally for the simple reason that all states are not equal and within countries all sections of society are not equal. there are, and can be, consequences if there is market failure on a global scale like the great depression, or a systemic global financial crisis as was the fear during the asian crisis or before that with the default of mexico in 1982 and the subsequent debt crisis in latin america. the international economic system is so interdependent and the flow of capital so huge and so potentially volatile that safety nets and governance systems must be put in place to prevent an economic and financial melt down. this would have spill - over effects on the system of liberal democracy, as in a response to such crises, governments may be tempted to assume authoritarian power. it could provoke ethnic strife within and between countries as scarce resources may be commanded by those who have political, military and economic power. where does this place corporate governance in the context of a rapidly changing and volatile environment? firstly, there are serious contradictions in the architecture of the international system. there is an increasing cross border flow of goods, services, capital and even labour. there are international conventions which states subscribe to, but there is no political architecture which can effectively regulate, police and redress the major issues which follow in the wake of these massive cross border flows. secondly, and because of the first, there has been a perceptible shift in power from nation states represented by their ministries of finance, tax authorities and central banks to the participants in international and national financial and equity markets, namely, pension funds, trust funds, hedge funds, large financial conglomerates and bond holders. bond holders, for example, have been able to hold up sovereign debt restructurings and pension funds have been able to unseat boards of directors and management. this has in a sense provided a counterbalance to the pressures within the market system, particularly stock valuations for consistency, improving performance to impress markets and investors. this has led to serious abuses and corporate malfeasance as in the celebrated cases of enron, worldcom, parmacat and others. the tensions in the market system spring from