At the time of the 2008 global credit crunch, I participated in Oxford's online debate on whether the economic crisis sounded the death knell for laissez faire capitalism. I argued it did, not because I was naïve enough to think that laissez faire policies would be abandoned, but because they should be, and until and unless they are, a repeat of the credit crunch and the resultant global recession hangs over us. In this talk I will review the record of the past five years, and consider prospects for the future. Economist Professor Jonathan Michie is Director of the Department for Continuing Education and President of Kellogg College.
