On the other hand, the concerns many people have with recent revelations about Wall Street capitalism seem to fall into a different category, whereby the actual rules of capitalism themselves are seen as being contrary to the broader rules of society. So the subprime mortgage market, AIG etc were in most cases following the ‘rules’ of contemporary capitalism, and for the most part not breaking any laws/regulations. But many people would feel that the system itself was running contrary to the interests of broader society. This, surely, is the underlying point behind calls for a return to higher levels of regulation in the money markets.

Of course this then brings us to one of the great divides between neo-liberal and Keynesian-style economic thinking: the neo-liberals have always argued that the market is essentially an organic system, whose laws are effectively laws of nature and therefore unalterable, whereas Keynesians would insist that all economic systems are man-made and therefore subject to being ‘remade’. It’s probably fairly obvious which side of that argument I agree with!