The market economy remains a hard sell and recent events have brought out the Jeremiahs to proclaim the death of capitalism. But the modern critique of capitalism is incoherent, summed up by the May day protesters whose banner read: “Capitalism should be replaced by something nicer”. It is much clearer what anti-globalisation protesters are against than what they are for. For many people, environmentalism has taken the place of socialism as a focus of anti-market sentiment. But environmentalism offers no economic theory, only a visceral dislike of any economic calculus. The two principal strands of modern leftist economic thought are social democracy and redistributive market liberalism. Robert Reich, President Clinton's labour secretary, expounded the social democratic philosophy in office and in his recent book Supercapitalism.
讓人接受市場經濟仍然十分困難，最近發生的事件則讓悲觀預言家們一個個冒了出來，宣告資本主義壽終正寢了。但是，有關資本主義的現代評論卻語無倫次，國際勞動節抗議者的橫幅將之總結爲：「資本主義應被更好的東西取代。」反對全球化的抗議者抗議的是什麼，顯然比他們支持什麼更一目瞭然。對許多人來說，環境保護論已取代社會主義，成了反市場情緒的焦點。但環保論沒有提供經濟理論，只有對所有經濟理論的本能厭惡。現代左翼經濟思想的兩股主要思潮是社會民主和再分配市場自由主義。美國總統柯林頓(Clinton)的勞工部長羅伯特•里奇(Robert Reich)在位期間以及在他的新作《超資本主義》(Supercapitalism)中闡述了社會民主哲學。