The failings of the political and economic paradigm known as “neoliberalism” are now familiar. However well suited it may have been to addressing stagflation in the 1970s, neoliberal policy has since then fostered grotesque inequality, fuelled the rise of populist demagogues, exacerbated racial disparities and hamstrung our ability to deal with crises like climate change. The 2008 financial crash exposed these flaws and inspired a reassessment of how government and markets relate to society — an effort given fresh energy by the pandemic, which elicited a range of (successful) public actions at odds with neoliberal bromides.

But powerful interests remain attached to neoliberalism, which has served them well. Regrettably, the re-emergence of inflation has given them a hook not merely to criticise US President Joe Biden’s spending, but to condemn efforts to change the prevailing paradigm as “socialistic” moves to destroy capitalism. Though the causes of today’s inflation are complex, we have tools to deal with it and have begun to apply them. Managing the economic fallout from Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine must not be allowed to derail a long-overdue process of adapting governance for a 21st century economy and society.

Neoliberals accomplished many things in the 50 years their ideology has been dominant, but none is more impressive than their success in equating a very particular, very narrow conception of capitalism with capitalism itself — as if any deviation from their approach to government and markets is perforce not capitalism or against capitalism.