From banking supermen to helpless pawns

The former Tory minister and businessman Philip Oppenheim has a letter in the Financial Times on the subject of Fred Goodwin today in which he implies that economic policymakers, rather than individual bankers, should be in the public stocks as we apportion blame for the financial crisis:

“Government actions are significantly responsible for our predicament – not least in creating a fiscal and monetary environment in which many Fred Goodwins flourished. We should be wary of prescribing more state power as the solution.”

For some people the place of government will always be in the wrong.

Figures like Goodwin were widely applauded by by “free market” commentators in the boom. They were portrayed as buccaneering, value-creating, capitalist supermen when things seemed to be  going well.

But when it all ended in tears many of these same commentators turned around and presented their former heroes as innocent pawns who were effectively forced into errors by blundering politicians and incompetent central bankers.*

Let’s assume, though, that these commentators are correct now and that these banking executives are merely flotsam and jetsam on the waves of official decisions. If that picture of powerlessness is true, an obvious question arises: why should we pay these bankers as if they are capitalist supermen?

* Allister Heath of City AM puts the blame for the bust on monetary policy, rather than individual bankers, here.

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