ABSTRACT
The crash of the financial market in Autumn 2008 has called for enormous coordinated state activities in order to restabilize the world economy. This historical moment has brought back to our minds that no stable economy can exist without rules established and controlled by coordinated state power. Some commentators have used this crisis to argue for reestablishing coordinated state control of the economy on a broader scale including the state’s responsibility for people’s welfare. To meet such claims would, however, draw back the deep-going processes of liberalization that have taken place everywhere over the past two decades. Such a return to the status quo ante is very unlikely to occur. It is the goal of this study to find out whether and why this is the case.
