Two things are original to Ms. Hertz's work: the story of how the penetration of business into government and vice versa means that the public is no longer even taken into consideration by those in power (except perhaps as potential rioters). She suggests that governments have so weakened themselves through policies of deregulation and privatization (in keeping with the dicta of the free market priests at the WTO and the IMF and the Fed), they are no longer conduits for the needs of citizens they once represented. Paradoxically, having supped full on tax breaks and corporate welfare, corporations now find they have to take over functions once supplied by the state: well-educated workforces for one. They do this sporadically, she notes, and almost always with an eye toward the accrual of PR benefits. It is doubtful they will fund common public goods such as the infrastructures that once ameliorated the dark side of capitalism -- welfare and unemployment programs to take just two examples. Incidentally, she doesn't blame them for their activities. She understands businesses are driven by only one imperative finally: creating wealth for shareholders. Which is why the free market can never fully deliver public goods, despite what the free marketeers say.
Citing as a precursor protests in the Progressive era that went outside the usual course of democratic institutions, she believes that it is time for people to make themselves heard - and not just through their purchases or the stocks they choose to buy (although that can be a powerful check on the corporation) - but also through putting their bodies in the street. For now, in the absence of government, she sees it as perhaps the only check on the private international structures of financial domination - the WTO, IMF.
Although Ms. Hertz's make you believe that the global hypercapitalism is going to be nearly impossible to stop, her personal story gives one some hope. An economist trained at Wharton (she was there to help "jump start" the Soviet economy in the early 90s), she has switched her allegiance to those people on the other side of the barricades. A powerful conversion story.
If we(USA) lived in a pure market system there would be no:
*Billions of government dollars for computer and medical research(darpa\nih)
*Tariffs for steel workers
*Bailouts of hedge funds (LTCM)
*Bailouts of bankrupt countries
In the case of bailing out countries with foreign debt (via the Bretton Woods organizations) and LTCM there was an arguably real fear that doing nothing could cause collapse of the world financial system. On the other hand giving the impression that the IMF will step in anytime western investors run into problems could lead to the very instabilities they are trying to solve.
This, and the corporate welfare parts, point to the concept of "Too Big To Fail", which is fairly easy to understand. If you remove the risk from investments, though, you might add huge distortions to the market that outweigh the benefits of capitalisim. Serious? Yes. Socialism? Hell no.
The government is going to intervene in the market, it does whether there is a left-wing nut or a right-wing nut in office. The important thing is that it does so intelligently so the maximum benefits go to the most people. These are complex issues not easily captured by any ism.
Communisim was not destroyed by Reagan, but by a system that allowed state run businesses to be horribly inefficient. If we allow the same thing from private businesses we are no better.
I didn't give this book 5 stars because I think the title is over-dramatic, which does disservice to its message.