"Free Enterprise" by Malvina Reynolds (1951)

The air you breathe is poison, the food you eat is worse,
The dollars in your pay check are pennies in your purse.
In full page advertisements they praise it to the skies,
They tie it up with fancy bows and dress it up in fancy clothes,
It still offends the gentle nose, free enterprise.

Chorus:
Free enterprise, it's free enough no doubt.
Anything they give away you're better off without.

The bandits of the old days would hide their heads in shame,
Their old-time buccaneering was hardly worth the name.
They used to end on gibbets and dance against the skies,
And now they live on top the town and sport their minks and cars around
And buy up Congress by the pound, free enterprise.

(Chorus)

There's nothing free about it, you pay at every turn,
Except the guys in Wall Street who have the stuff to burn.
They had to make new brain machines to count their profits' rise,
But since there's always room for more they still can make the market soar--
A little war does wonders for free enterprise.

(Chorus)

They gag you if you holler, they kick you if you sneeze,
They throw you in the hoosegow for singing songs like these.
The only way to like it is to close your ears and eyes,
It's good for G. M. Company, Morgan and the A and P,
But it's just no darn good for me, free enterprise.

Chorus)


That is the oldest enviro-song we have found up to now, concerning the genres we present. No matter that is the oldest, it's full of timeless truths about the amoralism of free market: enterprises and multinationals act and work at the expense of environment, public health, working conditions, democracy, human rights, etc in favour of their profits and greed. Today we are witnesses of the devastating impacts of a completely free global market and economy that leads to a global economic totalitarianism controlled by G8, WTO and a handfull of powerful multinational corporations.

You can hear Malvina's classic "Little Boxes" in youtube