The important, the defining, the crucial attribute of the role of Wal-Mart/Asda is that it is entirely voluntary. Nobody is coercing anybody. Indeed the reason it is such a huge success is that large numbers of us go there of our own volition. But even the largest corporations are utterly vulnerable to people’s choices. These may be whimsical or irrational. They may be a perceptive instinct for better options. We all remember Marks & Spencer’s dominance built on quality. Almost overnight it lost its magic. We went elsewhere… at least for a while. What a wake-up call that was.

Contrast this simple retailing story with schools. These are the products of utterly different forces – bureaucracy funded from taxation and built on the conscription of their customers. So much of education has been captured by the professions it is difficult to discern what parents or pupils want. At their meanest, some of our schools are little more than baby-sitting facilities. The students do not learn to read or write or count. Indeed as James Bartholomew, author of The Welfare State We’re In, points out: Two out of every five street robberies are committed by 10- to 16-year-olds during school hours. So are a quarter of all burglaries and a third of car thefts. It begins to seem that schools are academies of crime.

- Det skriver John Blundell fra Institute of Economic Affairs i "Why industrialists must stop being ashamed of capitalism".

Blundell afslutter sin kommentar således:

In their heart of hearts I think many top industrialists still carry the baggage of Marxism. They do genuinely believe they exploit, degrade or diminish. They see profits as zero-sum games. An exception is Lord Browne of BP. He observed that in business you want your customer to return. At one level this is a banality. Yet it is a crucial insight. In capitalism your relationship depends upon delivering satisfaction. The great cell structure of tiny transactions is what capitalism is really about. It is collaborative, participatory, mutual and, most oddly, equalising.