The organising principle of anarchy
The recent wave of incidents involving accounting fraud marks the end of an era. A tectonic ideological shift from laissez-faire and self-regulation to state involvement and regulation could result from disillusionment and disgust with American capitalism. This would be the reversal of a trend that can be traced to Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in Britain. Additionally, it would seriously question some fundamental—and far older—tenets of free-market ideology. Markets are thought to be self-assembling, self-organizing exchanges of products, information, and services. The totality of the systems that interact to produce the best possible allocation of economic resources makes up Adam Smith's "invisible hand." The randomness and lack of self-awareness of the market are precisely its greatest advantages versus central planning. Market members conduct their egocentric business while attempting to maximize their utility, blind to the interests and actions of everyone...