But it was all to end in a frenzy of speculation, followed by recrimination and self-doubt. Corporations that had never earned a cent of profit, and never would, were sold to investors for billions of dollars. Corporate executives would fill their pockets and invent revenues and profits to support their accounts of their own genius. And every international economic meeting would be besieged by demonstrators.

In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, John Kay unravels the truth about markets.