I don't think a new model is needed, just an adjusting of the current model. What we are seeing is capitalism unbridled, which is what the "reagan revolution" was all about. And it's a bill of goods. It's built on a very well told lie: that corporations create wealth and improve the quality of life. The carrot is a BMW and stock portfolio for every worker; the stick is the plant shutdown.

The first tenet is that corporations crate wealth. What corporations do is take resources and turn them into product. They convince you that you need the product and then lend you the money to buy it. Now you have no choice but to work for them, at their terms, to continue to feed your habit. How long before we once again "owe our soul to the company store"?

The second part of the lie is that corporations improve the quality of life. How has bad air, water that must be filtered to be drunk, and nearly constant noise translate into an improved life? Corporate boards have only one directive: maximize profits. In order to fulfill that directive, they will seek out the cheapest labor (there goes your job), sneak by with the cheapest acceptable level of quality and craftsmanship, and pass as many costs of doing business (routine environmental degradation, waste cleanup, catastrophic accident reparation) on to the state (that's us) as possible.

We as individuals and citizens have two possible means to influence corporate decision making - market forces and government intervention. But when businesses reach a certain size market forces are marginalized; multi-national corporations can control the markets. And as for government, they have played along, Republicans more and Democrats slightly less, since FDR was forced to clean up the last great corporate meltdown. Can you see where NAFTA and the FTAA fit into this picture?

Big Mick's post above has a lot of meat in it. Our dominant culture is running as fast as it can toward the very thing we as individuals fear the most - complete subservience to and dependence on some anonymous Big Brother. Except this time he looks just like Dilbert's pointed-haired boss.