To me, the take-over of the free-market system by finance, considered by many as a new, lasting form of capitalism, was only an opportunistic move by capital to surmount its contradictions. The growth in capital’s income and the decrease in labour’s cannot go on indefinitely. The financial side of the system was its Achilles’ heel. Sub-primes are not the cause of the crisis, which is systemic really, but only a minor hitch that triggered it off. After privatizing profits the extant ruling forces will see to it that losses are spread over the whole of society, namely that workers, pensioners and vulnerable Third World countries foot the bill.