A "New" European economy

I find it ironic that Blair is going to push for what he sees as positive economic reform across Europe (see here). While we were in the US, they ran a poll among Americans and found that most of them wished they lived in France because they perceived the French lifestyle was less hectic. If that's true, why do we allow our governments to push for ever more extremist capitalist economies? Globalisation should be construed as a dirty word when you consider all the misery for the developing world it brings just to drive down prices back home (while at the same time, people back here lose their jobs because the work's outsourced to said developing countries where companies can pay less for labour). And that's before we consider the environmental impact of ditching locally-based products in favour of stuff manufactured on the other side of the world and then shipped 10,000 miles.

The world truly has gone mad...