ABSTRACT
The bursting of the American sub-prime real estate bubble in 2008 plunged much of the world into a crisis of such severity that it prompted many economists to brand it the worst since the Great Depression (Reuters 2009). Although widely perceived to be a crisis of liberal capitalism, by 2009 it was clear that the ‘global’ nature of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) might well be an oversimplification. Of particular interest was the apparently sharp divide in the experience of the six Anglo-Saxon banking systems: whilst the American, British and Irish banks were very badly affected by the crisis, those of Canada, Australia and New Zealand performed far better ( Financial Times 2009). This gives rise to the somewhat unexpected possibility that there might, in fact, be more than one incarnation of liberal capitalism – and perhaps even a less destructive variant than the financialized neo-liberal model that has been seen to have caused the crisis.
