This article was written by Brown University student Chloe Lutts and appeared in the Brown Daily Herald on April 25, 2008.

Someone threw a pie at Thomas Friedman. Among the reasons she cited is "his sickeningly cheery applaud for free-market capitalism's conquest of the planet." Whether you think free market capitalism is the path to prosperity or the road to ruin, characterizing it as a force capable of conquest demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism itself.

Here's the thing about capitalism: It only works when people agree to participate, and they do that because it's the most attractive offering at the economic system buffet. It's like democracy in that way. Capitalism can no more conquer the world without the world's consent than democracy can (as opposed to authoritarianism and totalitarianism, which can - and do). If people don't participate in government, democracy can't spread. If people don't willingly enter into economic exchanges, capitalism gets nowhere.

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