The continuation of past economic attitudes which affirmed that the economy is limitless, self-sustaining and controlled by natural law, has resulted in there being no perceived necessity for systematic planning, organization and coordination of market facilities. This non-political operating stance is being radically called into question by the present collapse in the economy, as demonstrated in the misuse of the environment and the multitudes of poor people throughout the world.
Global market forces have ensured inappropriate development in developing countries through: allowing the limited numbers of relatively rich to appropriate most, if not all, of the available resources; encouraging the development of industries inappropriate to developing countries because they failed to respond to needs of the the majority of the people; and much of the productive capacity of developing countries has become geared to the needs of the industrialized countries.
Markets have a powerful, and usually overwhelming, tendency to encourage inappropriate development and distribution decisions. It is the normal functioning of the global market economy which delivers the available resources to the few and deprives the majority. The refusal to acknowledge that allocation of market facilities is a political process has led to a seemingly unbridgeable gap between the grassroots and the dominating economic powers, thus preventing the equitable allocation. The current injustices in market facilities demand that the wealthy elite at the top of the "pyramid" participate with those at the base in planning and defining equal access.
There is no evidence that they market system can cope with the extraordinary tensions to result from the acceleration of demography and environmental degradation. Most marketing feelers are focused on the wealthy top billion and their signals depressed by the current recession. The market is therefore mostly blind to the opportunity of billions of consumers aspiring to a better quality of life. Business is doing little to develop the goods and services which would ensure a sustainable consumption by the majority of the world's people.
It is not politics that constrain market efficiency, but market forces that impair the pursuit of social goals and values related to collective welfare.
We live in a time in which every living system is in decline, and the rate of decline is accelerating as our economy grows. The commercial processes that bring us the kind of lives we supposedly desire are destroying the earth and the life we cherish. Given current corporate practices, not one wildlife reserve, wilderness, or indigenous culture will survive the global market economy.
The market mechanism is the most appropriate mechanism for ensuring the most equitable economic decisions.
The claims about "free market" were never more than a mirage. Markets are political, in the broadest sense of the term. There isn't just political influence on market outcomes; there is public responsibility for them. To tap the potential of a market economy does not mean we have to accept the failings of one. Supply and demand are created by society, not antecedent to it. Far from being opposite, markets and politics are closely intertwined. Instead of market outcomes depending on the free play of autonomous market players, they depend on the framework of political decisions and social institutions within which decisions are made.