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Which capitalism will it be?

Reform cannot just rush parents and kids back into the mall, it must encourage them to shop less

February 21, 2009 By BENJAMIN R. BARBER Benjamin R. Barber, a distinguished senior fellow at Demos, is the author of "Jihad vs. McWorld and Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole."

As America, recession-mired, enters the hope-inspired age of Barack Obama, a struggle for the soul of capitalism is being waged. Can the market system finally be made to serve us? Or will we continue to serve it?

George W. Bush argued that the crisis is "not a failure of the free-market system, and the answer is not to try to reinvent that system." But while it is going too far to declare...

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