Recent instability in the financial markets has shaken confidence in the global economic order. Is the current variant of ?free market? capitalism in fact sustainable? This remarkable book explains its underlying economic fragility as a result of: The growing redundancy of both capital and labour because of changing technologies and chronic slow growth since the 1970s; The desperate struggle of organised capital to prevent its redundancy from being reflected in a 1930s-type collapse in the price of financial assets; The consequent distortion of official policy -- in areas like corporate subsidies, taxation, pensions and privatisation -- to help maintain the value of capital. This book exposes the sham of the laissez faire prospectus. In fact, state power and resources are increasingly propping up capital while pretending to roll back the frontiers of the state.