War & Peace Quote by Susan George

George frames “the real fight” as a boundary war, not a budget debate. The question isn’t whether markets work efficiently; it’s whether markets should be allowed to define the meaning of certain human needs. By shifting the battleground from prices to principles, she exposes how political conflicts are often disguised as technical disputes. Once education and healthcare are treated as “marketable commodities,” access stops being a right-like guarantee and becomes a purchasable tier. That’s not a neutral reform; it’s a moral reclassification.

The line works because it’s built like a trapdoor. “Marketplace” sounds practical, even inevitable, until she asks what belongs there. The subtext: markets are not nature, they’re policy choices enforced by laws, contracts, and institutions. George’s two clipped questions land as accusations. They imply that commodification isn’t simply a tool for delivery, but a power shift - from citizens to consumers, from public obligation to private transaction. When you make schooling a product, you invite branding, segmentation, debt, and the quiet acceptance that some people will “opt out” because they can’t pay. When you make healthcare a commodity, scarcity isn’t a tragedy; it’s a business model.

Contextually, this is classic anti-neoliberal critique from an activist who came of age watching privatization, structural adjustment, and deregulation travel globally as common sense. George isn’t asking for a kinder market. She’s demanding a line in the sand: some goods are too foundational to be organized around profit without changing what they are.