ABSTRACT
The financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent recession were products, in part, of what was arguably the greatest regulatory failure of the postwar period. For some, the costs were primarily material. They lost their jobs, their homes, their retirement funds and their invitation to participate in the “ownership society.” For others, the costs were ideological, as the crisis forced a reevaluation of core foundational assumptions about the political economy. Efforts to diagnose the sources of the crisis and design a new regulatory architecture began in earnest in the autumn of 2008. This episode is of great interest. Most immediately, the stakes involved are enormous. The new regulatory system could prevent a future financial crisis from occurring or, at the very least, minimize the damage. Moreover, it is of inherent interest insofar as the crisis and its economic consequences were in many ways a product of the larger neoliberal agenda that found an expression for a generation in key policy decisions.
