The gathering economic gloom should not obscure a fundamental truth of our time: the market remains the most successful engine of wealth creation known to humankind. This will come as no surprise to Financial Times readers. But when times get hard, business can quickly find itself under siege. Edward Heath’s “unacceptable face of capitalism”, the lampooning of 1980s “greed is good” and last year’s media assault on the private equity barons all show it is not difficult to find symbols with which to attack the market.

For those of us who worry about equality, it would be all too easy to join in. Business still has plenty to do to instill fairness in the way it works. There is still a pay gap between women and men, there are still too few people from ethnic minorities in the higher echelons, disabled people are still too likely to be outside the world of work and we have yet to work out how best to use the skills of older workers. But the Equality and Human Rights Commission will not be joining the hunting party to seek capitalism’s demise.