The New Orleans catastrophe did not only show the real significance of the “American Dream”, which was promoted in the post-war period as the model of capitalist “development”. It also revealed the very essence of the market economy system and representative ‘democracy’ which, particularly in the USA, has met - better than anywhere else - the criteria of economic and political liberalism. This essence is summed up in economic and political inequality and the separation of society from the economy and polity established by a system in which it is not the citizen body itself which takes all the important economic and political decisions, but an economic and political elite. The rest of the population are condemned to a continuous struggle for economic survival . This implies that in an emergency situation not only does the economic, but even the physical survival of many people become impossible, not, of course, through any fault of their own -- as neo(liberal) ideologists have the nerve to suggest -- but because this system, by its own nature, cannot meet even the basic needs of all citizens. All this could be seen in practice in New Orleans. Takis Fotopoulos focuses on the 'systemic' dimensions of the problem, which are invariably ignored by neoliberal, social liberal and reformist Left analysts as a result of their direct or indirect adoption of the system.