The doctrine of liberalism – individual liberty – was used by the rising capitalist class to uphold their right to run their businesses without interference in the “free” market by the landowning class or the church.

In this book Colin Crouch outlines the many deficiencies of the market and the countermeasures taken by the state in the mid-20th century. Social benefits, Keynesian demand-management and public ownership were designed to smooth out booms and slumps, reduce poverty and sustain capitalism.

The reversal of these policies began in the 1970s in response to the inflationary crisis of capitalism after the upsurge in oil and other commodity prices. The goal of full employment was downgraded by the Labour government in 1976 in return for an IMF loan.

Tax cuts for the rich, privatisation and financial deregulation followed under Thatcher and her successors. Neoliberalism was the ruling ideology.

The cry that the market knows best was shriller than ever, leading the speculators’ rush to the finance-driven crisis.

Crouch correctly sees the leading players as the giant firms who not only dominate their markets but also wield great lobbying power. He is resigned to them surviving the financial crisis and preserving neoliberalism.

While he writes clearly about ideas, Crouch neglects the politics underlying them.

Neoliberalism is a strategy for boosting profits, lowering costs and weakening the trade unions. Falling real wages and the threat of a more catastrophic market slump are amongst its social costs.

What is to be done? Democratic socialist control of monopoly capitalism is certainly not one of Crouch’s proposals.

Instead, he believes that the churches, professions, voluntary organisations and campaigning groups should assert their moral values and call the corporations to account.

Like Cameron’s Big Society, which it resembles, his prospectus diverts attention from the politics of resistance by all these social groups and the labour movement to the wrecking policies of the giants and their political partners.