Protesting market fundamentalism

It has become evident since last summer that the economic crisis of the moment is not just an American disease. It is, rather, systemic in nature and global in scope. There is, therefore, more than enough pain to go around. Naomi Kline's recent article pointed to the many protests that have menaced governments around the world. The object of the protesters' ire: The market fundamentalist policies now in favor among the world's political elite. Unlike the majority of Americans, who refuse to employ most forms of political action, the citizens of other countries are attempting to impose their collective will on their states. They are motivated to do so by the fact that their governments still turn to an economic orthodoxy discredited by the crisis the orthodoxy is meant to resolve. It appears the protesters fail to see a future worth having in this policy choice. Kline concludes by addressing this very point:

The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale. As Italy's students have taken to shouting in the streets: "We won't pay for your crisis!"