"The maternity ward..." - Frank was born in Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf, which was used during the First Gulf War to launch attacks on Iraq, etc. Frank obviously links this war to Western economic concerns ("Like a stable petroleum price").
He goes on to talk about how these economic concerns are altering the physical landscape, and points out the irony in the name "carpark" ("the requisite stock of carparks [which aren't the same]").
He links it to "cultural decay" and mocks the "freedom of choice" that Capitalism offers, implying that none of the choices are positive ones, and also that this emphasis on choice avoids the fundamental nature of human life and the economy; "all choice and no need makes Jack a dull economist".
He talks about the increasing privatisation of public space, feeding Capitalism further, and opening up new domains to it, at the expense of principles ("Prophet and cause superceded by profit and loss")
The "Marshall's mustachioed face" line refers to Alfred Marshall, an economist who (to quote wikipedia) "extended economics away from its classical focus on the market economy and instead popularized it as a study of human behavior".
[The fact that I had to look him up is amusing in itself due to the line "and if people knew who he was"]
Frank tries to point out that the economic history and the way that Capitalism has developed have shaped our entire world, and yet it is ignored, downplayed, or even misrepresented ("if they taught honest history in school")
"The maternity ward..." - Frank was born in Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf, which was used during the First Gulf War to launch attacks on Iraq, etc. Frank obviously links this war to Western economic concerns ("Like a stable petroleum price").
He goes on to talk about how these economic concerns are altering the physical landscape, and points out the irony in the name "carpark" ("the requisite stock of carparks [which aren't the same]").
He links it to "cultural decay" and mocks the "freedom of choice" that Capitalism offers, implying that none of the choices are positive ones, and also that this emphasis on choice avoids the fundamental nature of human life and the economy; "all choice and no need makes Jack a dull economist".
He talks about the increasing privatisation of public space, feeding Capitalism further, and opening up new domains to it, at the expense of principles ("Prophet and cause superceded by profit and loss")
The "Marshall's mustachioed face" line refers to Alfred Marshall, an economist who (to quote wikipedia) "extended economics away from its classical focus on the market economy and instead popularized it as a study of human behavior". [The fact that I had to look him up is amusing in itself due to the line "and if people knew who he was"]
Frank tries to point out that the economic history and the way that Capitalism has developed have shaped our entire world, and yet it is ignored, downplayed, or even misrepresented ("if they taught honest history in school")