We are entering a period of financial socialism, by which I mean that the government is buying enterprises which cannot survive in the free market – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the $700bn credit bailout in the US, Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley in the UK. Most observers look at such financial socialism as an emergency measure – and a bad thing. To me it is a good thing; indeed, public ownership needs to be extended from the financial sector to the manufacturing and service sectors.

The reason for this is that Europe and the US have many industries and service businesses which cannot survive in the global economy. In the 1980s it was often assumed that the developing world would get the poor-quality, grunt jobs and the west would reserve for itself higher-quality skilled labour. This has proved in the past 20 years not to be the case. India, Brazil, China and south-east Asia are more than cheap labour markets; they are increasingly places able to provide high-skill, high-quality work.