«New Labour, Mr Brown believed, had to come to terms with the market. Now it has to come to terms with the malfunctioning of the market. For the economic problems faced by Britain arise, in part at least, from the long reign of insufficiently regulated markets, a regime that produced the housing boom and the excess lending of Northern Rock. In difficult times, governments can no longer withdraw from markets but will have to engage with them more closely. In the US, Barack Obama, the nearest America has come to a social democrat, has struck a chord with precisely this message. For the political debate on both sides of the Atlantic is moving from a concentration on the failure of the state to a renewed understanding of the weaknesses of markets.»
(Vernon Bogdanor, Financial Times, destaque acrescentado.)
