ABSTRACT
Market forces have grown so powerful that they make it increasingly difficult for states to pursue their own autonomous economic and social policies which is, for example, the main reservation many Europeans have about forging a common currency. This chapter provides a trivial example of the intrusive influence of market forces from the world of politics in the United States. In President Clinton's first year in office, he proposed a government-sponsored economic program of social investment in training and education, and in building public infrastructure. The landslide election of Tony Blair in England underscores how much the left as well as the right has endorsed the legitimacy and power of a market-driven economy. The central dynamic is surely the increasing dominance of market forces, especially the influence of huge pools of capital that can shift overnight from one part of the globe to another, plus the awesome power of the new technology that the market economy commands.
