At a time when so many commentators hark back to 1929, it is worth recalling more recent history, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The contrast between the end of communism then and the much-exaggerated death of capitalism now is telling. Then, a popular movement swept away a brutal and long-discredited regime amid scenes of jubilation; now, voters are not celebrating, simply fretting that the good times might be over. Then, the hoped-for alternative to communism was clear: democracy and a market economy. Today, there is no convincing alternative.
Yet this is no time for complacency from friends of the market. It is time to remind ourselves not only of the limits of markets, but their strengths.
One of the things that markets do superbly well is to encourage experimentation: new ideas emerge, spreading quickly if they deliver what the market wants and disappearing if they do not. The FT columnist John Kay calls this “disciplined pluralism”. Government programmes tend to be neither pluralistic nor disciplined, since states thrive on big ideas and are able to waste vast sums supporting them.