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Author
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Lindsay J. Thompson
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Year
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2009
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Publisher
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Journal of Business Technology and Law
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Abstract
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Free market capitalism is understood by most Americans as instrumental to the American dream, providing ordinary people with the economic means for their pursuit of happiness. The benefits of free enterprise, however, accrue increasingly to a small fraction of already wealthy high income earners, corporate shareholders, and business interests with a long, consistent, and well documented history of antagonism towards the interests of consumers, workers, society, and the natural environment. Emerging models of geopolitics, the economy, and the corporation suggest that this elitist, anti-regulatory posture of business is fast becoming obsolete as the value of human capital gains currency in the knowledge-driven, creative economy of the market state. The emergence of the market state can be viewed as a movement toward economic democracy, in which people expect accountability from business and free enterprise as a platform for achieving their goals and realizing their dreams.