Globalisation. The Flat World. Outsourcing. Free Trade. Each of these phrases is a flashpoint in one of the most heated debates of our lifetime: is globalisation a force for good, or is it a policy that is sure to destroy the economic foundation of the United States and Europe while exporting our wealth and prosperity overseas? Watch

The media has been awash with commentators and politicians telling us how we can not allow this recession to be used as an excuse to give up on globalisation - or as they prefer to call it "free trade". Latest in the line to have their say is London mayor, Boris Johnson. It is a natural assumption that in times of economic distress we should put our own nation first, and if you want evidence of th...

Over the last few weeks or so there has been a lot of talk about the "free market" with little thought for what that actually means. Outside of the black economy - illegal drugs, arms trafficking, people smuggling - there is no such thing as a free market. All legal trade is regulated and any regulation means that the market is not a free entity. What people mean when they talk about the free mark...

Thought free market economics were complex? You thought wrong. It's all veeeery simple, explains Jon Stewart. You take your economic pyramid, then you add your invisible, government-funded scaffolding of the free-market... Watch from around the 01:25 mark... The Daily Show...

If at all possible, it would be nice to have a free market in everything. You can't really have a free market in public goods or core functions of the state*, but that's only five or ten per cent of the economy or overall activity. The only other half-way sensible thing that a government can do is redistribution and/or subsidising merit goods, i.e. education and health. Given our startin...

The altogether splendid, utterly sound and sadly missed José María Aznar López, former PM of Spain has been interviewed by Le Figaro, and here are my favourite bits: "Doesn't the economic crisis signify the failure of the free market? It is certainly not a failure of the free market, but a failure of the current mechanism of state regulation and intervention in a sector w...

We are all talking about the crisis in the US sub-prime loan market and the havoc it has wreaked on our economy, but no one is talking about why the banks give out these “irresponsible” loans. You may be surprised to learn that they are in fact required to do so by law. So while it maybe fashionable for left-wing commentators to blame the “free-market ideology” for all of our woes, its act...

I'm no fan of Eric Hobsbawm, the communist apologist and sometime historian, but I have even less time for those who have no knowledge, or worse, interest in history. Over on The Times comment section, Martin Ivens has a go at Hobsbawm for having a go at globalisation. Hobsbawm got a hearing on Radio 4’s Today programme to feast on our current woes, saying: “Globalisation, which i...

It was dubbed the sparkling jewel of the Persian Gulf – and held up as proof of the wonders of the free market

This statement, from Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, is priceless: Instead of celebrating the Fourth of July next year Americans will be celebrating Bastille Day; the free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America... The action proposed today by the Treasury Department will take away the free market and institute socialism in America. The American taxpayer has been mislead throu...