democratizing the workplace, how bout that. Look up leaderless organizations.

speaking of vague assertions...tell me why getting rid of overpaid figure heads is so troubling to you?

As to why a market economy? Have you read Marx? Or at least bought anything, ever? I'm sure you have. Markets are just places of exchange. The rules are human made. There is no God governing them. The word "Law" in relationship to the economy is just a carry over word from an era where natural philosophers couldn't decide between whether there was omniscient being setting forth creeds or not. Our current "free market will correct itself" ideology is a hold over from that era. It's time to evolve. However it is a mistake to ignore the fact that real markets exist and are necessary for the distribution of goods and services. It's just a euphemism for where people buy and sell shit. We have to set the rules for what is fair and just. It's not hard at all, philosophically. Politically? that's another story. We run up against some strong mythologies. The reality is, humans have needs, our economy is structured so that we are all interdependent on each other's skills to provide for those needs (social scientists call this 'the division of labor'), thus markets have to exist for the satisfaction of those needs. The question is do we organize our economy in hierarchical structures defined by authoritarian principles or do we organize it in the only institution that humans have created (thus far) that guarantees a modicum of freedom - democracy. Don't confuse the term with a state run government, it's merely an organizing principle designed to give as many people as much input as possible in decision-making. ...tis' all. You can have democracy in the political sphere, the economic sphere, and the private sphere. We currently only have it in a rough form in the political sphere (because the sheer size of it makes pure democracy impossible). However, in each organization we work in, the majority of them are of adequate size to work efficiently with out a little lord farquad, sitting up on his horse in his little codpiece, dictating to the rest of us what we have to do. We can decide what's best for a company democratically. Family matters are another story. No one likes an authoritarian; however constitutionally we must put up with them. Constitutionally speaking we do not have to put up with little lord farquad, or his codpiece, in our work life. The only thing truly American, is democracy. We currently do not have that in our economy.