Episode description

Post-Katrina New Orleans: how disaster recovery became a lucrative business. Laurie Taylor talks to Vincanne Adams, US Professor of Medical Anthropology, about her account of market failure after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She discovered private companies profiting from the misery they sought to ameliorate and a second order disaster that intensified inequalities based on race and class. Why were residents left to re-build their lives and homes almost entirely on their own, save for the contribution of churches and charities? Phil O'Keefe, Professor of Economic Development, joins the discussion.

Also, 'The Capitalist Personality' - Laurie Taylor explores interpersonal bonds in the post communist world. Christopher Swader, Assistant Professor of Sociology in Moscow, argues that successful people in countries as diverse as China and Russia adjust to the market economy at a social cost, compromising moral values in pursuit of material gain. Is anti social behaviour in new capitalist economies a by-product of their communist pasts or does the individual ambition released by economic development also have a part to play in threatening human relationships?

Producer: Jayne Egerton.