This paper sketches some elements of economy theory which recommend the current deregulation of trade, banking and international exchange. Where market participants are not responding to the new conditions as expected, the paper explores (i) the actual opportunities and incentives to which they are responding instead, including (ii) some unexpected interactive effects which freer trade, freer banking and freer capital exchanges have on each other, and consequently on the validity of the branches of theory which recommend their deregulation; and (iii) some characteristics of the general kind of science which has guided the deregulatory and other 'small government' policies and expectations. It then suggests what kind of regime might allow a more efficient global economy to serve more humane purposes than it is yet serving, within and between developed and developing economies, if the formidable opposition to such a reform could be overcome.

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