"Twenty years ago I wrote a book in defence of global capitalism. I never thought I would do that. Capitalism, I had thought, was all about greedy monopolists and mighty landlords. But then I began to study the world and realized that it was in the least market-based societies that such elites were protected from the free choice of citizens and therefore had the greatest power. Paradoxically, it was capitalism – in the form of free markets and voluntary agreements based on private ownership – that threatened the powerful. The argument for capitalism is not that capitalists always behave well – if that were the case, we could safely give them monopoly power – but that they often do not behave well unless they have to. And it is freedom of choice and competition that force their hands."