Entrepreneurialism.

Editor,

"Entrepreneurialism" has replaced "capitalism" and "globalization" as the engine of American wealth generation on the editorial pages of the corporate press. Google and eBay are mentioned, entrepreneurialism's highest achievers. The implication is that "free" markets support individuals' dreams: start a business, become independent, the antithesis of the bureaucratic red tape in France, for example, or the outright regimentation supposed under dreaded socialism.

This is all meant to scare readers into believing that capitalism is "the best system we've got." But centralization in the form of giant corporations such as Wal-Mart is functionally -- and anti-democratically -- the same as centralization under a communist Ministry of Groceries. Monopoly capitalism, where industrial foxes guard the regulatory henhouse and big money buys government to enable itself to plunder, has given us global warming, unaffordable healthcare, a litany of other crises, and war.

Innovative businesses can and should be nurtured, but when corporate interests and the interests of civil society conflict, civil society should always win. This is democracy. It is the opposite of what we live with now.