Law, Business, and Society 9th Edition by Tony McAdams

Exercise 41

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich speculated about five possible scenarios for the political economy of the current century. Which do you think is the more likely direction Explain.
a. History is ending in bureaucratic corporatism.... Key decisions are shifting away from elected politicians and legislative bodies toward multinational bureaucracies (such as the G-8) and global corporations unaccountable to any single population.
b. History alternates between periods of central control and chaos, and we are again entering the latter. The 40-year interval of superpower stability is giving way to tribal fragmentation and warfare with ethnic tensions flaring over Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the Asian subcontinent, and even within advanced industrial nations.
c. History is ending in cultural authoritarianism. Societies like Japan and Germany, which reward group loyalty and investment, are gaining economic power over societies organized around individual liberty and personal consumption. Meanwhile, much of the Third World is succumbing to Islamic fundamentalism.
d. History is ending in liberal democracy and individual liberty. Modern economies depend on educated workforces, which in turn are demanding rights and freedoms that only liberal democracies can provide (look at Latin America).
e. All of the above. See Robert Reich, "Is Liberal Democracy the Hallmark of Our Era" The Wall Street Journal , February 6, 1992,