Market fundamentalism

Sir, - Mr. Rajni Bakshi's Creative Quest ``Beyond market fundamentalism'' (TheHindu, Sept. 24) reveals the collusion that exists between market forces and powerful governments. The term `free market' is an oxymoron in the context of a fast globalising world. With the evolution of huge multinational corporations, the turnover of some of whom is greater than the combined GNP of a few nations, there is a need to rethink the idiom of free market and globalisation.

The ineffectiveness of the current paradigm is borne out by the exploitation of the developing world through economic neo- colonialism by the developed countries with the help of the WTO and Bretton Woods institutions.

Working within the narrow confines of self-interest maximisation the older model of market economics is largely devoid of the social and ethical considerations as rightly pointed out by Mr. Rajni Bakshi, ``... the nature of modern economics has been substantially impoverished by the distance that has grown between economics and ethics'' and ``Economic issues can be extremely important for ethical questions, including the Socratic query, `How should one live?'' (Amartya Sen, On Ethics and Economics, Oxford University Press).

The rash of protests at global economic fora indicate the growing disenchantment of common citizens in the developed world with the polices of the IMF and World Bank and call attention to the basic rights of human beings in the poor countries and a reawakening of altruism among these institutions.

Mushtaqh Ali,

Chennai

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Section  : Opinion
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