It is precisely the need to challenge the notion of an un­conditional right of property and to insist on the public accountability of its owners – taking account of the immense power of corporations to influence the welfare of society – which now demands to be grasped. The justification for doing so is surely all the more compelling in view of the huge privileges and protection now provided to the private corporate sector by the state. These supports – beginning with the right to limited liability conceded in the mid-nineteenth century and culminating in the state’s assumption of the role of lender of last resort in the Keynesian era – have become indispensable to the present-day corporate sector. Yet the implied contract linked to these favours clearly must be that the corporate sector will in turn provide the economic well-being which the community ­requires.13 Hence it seems inconceivable that in a modern economy the presumption that private companies (whether truly answerable to their shareholders or not) can be the ultimate arbiters of our common economic destiny will be found tolerable indefinitely. ­ Indeed future generations may well marvel that they were allowed so much latitude for so long.