Free-market fundamentalists hope that the incoming tide of government interventionism will rapidly ebb, leaving markets once again to enjoy the freedoms of light tough regulation. That is wishful thinking. Sure, no government in its right mind sees the crisis as a way to return to an out-of-date form of planned socialism run by unaccountable bureaucrats. But it is foolish to believe – after three decades in which advocates of unbridled laisser faire have ruled the ideological roost and amid the worst financial crisis in two generations – that prevailing intellectual fashions will not now swing far the other way.

Staunch defenders of free markets are on the back foot. Alan Greenspan has offered a mea culpa, saying he made a “mistake” believing that banks, operating out of self interest, would protect their shareholders and institutions. But regulating everything to death will be no panacea. Capitalism, to paraphrase Churchill, is the worst economic system, except for all the others. Systemic breakdowns occur, but are rare. Free trade and deregulated markets make for wild rides and hideous concentrations of wealth, but they remain the best means of increasing global prosperity. Even China's premier, head of the largest centrally-planned economy, reads Adam Smith for inspiration.