ABSTRACT
International financial markets have served as more than just a passive transmission mechanism for the global contagion; they have themselves been the main cause of the economic epidemic. If it is true that the operation of free financial markets was in and of itself the fundamental cause of the present crisis, then a radical reconsideration of the dominant role that deregulated financial markets play in the world is inevitable. The global capitalist system is characterized not just by global free trade but more specifically by the free movement of capital. Within the main capitalist countries, strong frameworks of state intervention already exist to protect against financial instability. The choice confronting the world today is whether to regulate global financial markets internationally to ensure that they carry out their function as a global circulatory system or leave it to each individual state to protect its own interests. The latter course will surely lead to the eventual breakdown of global capitalism.
