The massive government interventions announced on both sides of the Atlantic in the last 48 hours may, just, have prevented the world's financial system from imploding. Alongside the largest monetary meltdown in half a century, we face collapsing consumer and business spending. These problems are closely intertwined - the financial crisis is part of the cause of the collapse in spending, and the collapse in spending is now undermining financial markets - but they need separate (and yet non-conflicting) solutions.

To get a handle on these problems, start on the financial side and two big "facts" about banking and money.

First, since the emergence of modern capitalism some three centuries ago, we have seen more than 30 major financial crises - about one every 10 years. But this is an average. In the UK, we've had more than 30 years since the last banking rescue (the secondary banks in 1974). One result was a growing belief, now shattered, that banking could be left largely to the private sector.

In the US, the ideology of the unfettered market is more deep-seated. Despite the collapse and rescue of Continental Illinois in 1984, despite the savings and loans crisis of the 80s, and despite the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, the US clung, until the last few weeks, to the belief that the banks could largely be left alone. Nevertheless, economic history is clear: banking systems almost always eventually over-extend themselves and have to be rescued - not just the Brits and the Americans, but the Japanese and the Latin Americans in the early 80s and then the Scandinavians, the south Asians and the Russians in the 90s.

Secondly, money is not like cars or cups of tea - you cannot test-drive or taste it. It depends, above all, on trust and confidence which cannot be bought or exchanged. Money is the bedrock for the whole economic system. If you are to avoid catastrophe when confidence evaporates, as it has done in the recent turmoil, the only option is for the state to underpin the core financial institutions.

These two facts are the reasons we are where we are today. Faced with meltdown, the chancellor's dramatic actions on Monday (followed by the US and Europe) are exactly appropriate: inject liquidity into the markets, provide guarantees to the inter-bank market and, above all, inject public capital directly into the banks by the purchase of their shares. But why not also match the commitments made by others for 100% security for personal deposits? This is an area where, now that the government has acted with credibility, the greater the promise, the less the cost!

Do taxpayers here and in the US need to be worried about the scale of this intervention? Hardly at all. The bank shares governments are buying at these depressed prices will almost certainly prove to be a bargain. When the Scandinavians did the same, the public purse made a gain. Moreover, as the chief secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, has said, the scare-mongering about the scale of government debt is based on the fallacy that this is "spending" just like buying the services of a teacher or a doctor. It is not, it is a financial investment. The talk of tax rises is also irresponsible. It causes people to be yet more fearful and to spend less, increasing the spiral downwards towards major recession.

That recession (or the shortage of global aggregate demand) is the elephant in the room. Its origins lie in the huge imbalances in the world economy, resulting from our credit-driven consumption in the west having filled the vast hole in demand that would otherwise have been left by high levels of Asian (especially Chinese) saving. As we in the west stop spending, the only way to avoid a global recession is for the Chinese, especially, to spend more. So far there is no sign of this. Would they cooperate if asked? Not necessarily, but they hold such vast dollar reserves (around $2 trillion) that they have a massive incentive to help stop the US economy and its currency descending into chaos. At the global and aggregate demand level, as well as in terms of future global financial stability, the Chinese are an essential part of the solution and it is extraordinary that the G7 or G8 groups do not include them. They should be invited immediately.

Meanwhile, the current financial crisis, its reminder of economic history, and the differences between finance and the rest of the economy, make two further points imperative. One is that every major bank has to have the state standing behind it. This has been known for ages but, shockingly, was forgotten in the case of Iceland. We now need international agreement that countries with a small tax base must either run banks that are commensurately small or must get their banks underwritten by international bodies such as the IMF. The second is that financial regulation has to be approached with a completely different mindset from that for the rest of the economy. Elsewhere, competition can be a substitute for regulation. In banking, the opposite applies: the greater the competition, the greater the need for regulation and/or supervision.

The twin results - the growth and influence of China, plus a more regulated and state-financed banking system - make it inevitable that the Anglo-Saxon model of unfettered capitalism that has dominated thinking for half a century will be much diminished. What will replace it is unclear, but it may well look more like a form of state capitalism - perhaps not full-blown, but something much closer to Chinese capitalism than would have seemed conceivable just a month ago.

• Andrew Graham is an economist and master of Balliol College, Oxford
master@balliol.ox.ac.uk

最近四十八小时内，大西洋两岸几乎同时宣布启动大规模政府干预，或许可以阻止全球金融体系崩溃。我们面对的不仅是货币体系半个世纪以来最大的崩盘，与之相伴还有消费者和企业正在垮掉的消费行为。这些问题环环相扣——金融危机是造成消费崩溃的部分原因，而消费崩溃正在损害金融市场——它们分别需要独立的，无冲突的解决方法。

要想找到解决问题的脉络，应该从金融，以及两个大的“现实”——银行和货币入手。

首先，自从三个世纪前现代资本主义发端以来，我们已经看到超过三十次主要的金融危机——差不多每十年一次。不过这只是平均数。自1974年解决次级银行危机以来，三十多年间英国首次遭遇危机。其造成的结果是，人们相信绝大多数银行应由私人掌控，尽管现在这种信心已被完全粉碎。

在美国，自由市场的思想更加根深蒂固。尽管有1984年伊利诺伊大陆国民银行的崩溃和救援，尽管有1980年代的存贷款危机， 尽管有1998年对长期资本管理公司的营救，但美国人直到最近几星期才不再坚持银行可以不受监管。然而，经济史清楚表明，银行体系几乎总是过于膨胀，最终 不可收拾——不仅英国人和美国人是这样。1980年代早期的日本人和拉美人，稍后的斯堪的纳维亚人，以及1990年代的南亚和俄国都是如此。

其次，货币不是汽车或茶饮，你无法试驾，也不能品尝。特别是，货币所依赖的信用和信心无法交换或是买卖。货币是整个经济体系的基础。当信心消失时，就像目前我们遭遇的一样，如果你想避免更大的灾难，仅有的选择是给予核心金融机构以国家支持。

正是这两个事实造成今日我们所处局面。面对危局，周一财政大臣戏剧性的行动（美国和欧洲紧随其后）：为市场注入流动性，为银行间交易提供担保，特别 是以购买股份的方式为银行直接注入公共资本等等，是完全恰当的。不过，为什么没有为个人存款提供100%安全的承诺？现在政府已经在恢复信心方面采取行 动，此时承诺越大，代价越小。

欧洲和美国的纳税人是否对政府干预的规模感到担忧？几乎完全不是。政府在一个很低的价格水平上收购银行股份，这几乎肯定是一次划算的交易。当年斯堪 的纳维亚国家做了相同的事情，国库因此大赚一笔。此外，正如财政部首席秘书伊维特·库伯所言，一些有关政府债务耸人听闻的说法是建立在这样一种荒谬的认识 之上：认为这是类似购买医生或教师服务的一种“消费”行为。事实上，这并非消费，而是一种金融投资。对增加税收的谈论也是不负责任的。加税会造成人民愈发恐慌，更少消费，经济将盘旋而下，直至衰退。

衰退（或者说全球总体需求短缺）是明摆着的的现实（英谚：房中的大象，the elephant in the room，译者注）。它起源于全球经济严重失衡，造成这种失衡的原因是，我们信贷驱动的消费行为填补西方国家大量的需求漏洞，否则，这些需求将被留在高储蓄水平的亚洲（特别是中国）。 当西方国家停止消费，避免全球性衰退的唯一途径就是让中国这样的国家消费更多。到目前为止还没有这种迹象。如果发出请求，他们会合作吗？未必，不过，他们 持有庞大的美元储备（大约两万亿美元），因此中国有足够的理由阻止美国经济和货币陷入混乱。在全球总体需求水平方面，以及未来全球经济稳定方面，中国都能 在解决方案中发挥其独一无二的作用。不寻常的是这个国家还不是G7或G8的成员，它们应当立即接到邀请。

同时，无论从经济史角度，还是从金融与实体经济差异角度，目前金融危机存在两点当务之急。一是所有主要银行都要得到国家支持。尽管已为人所知，但令人震惊的是，冰岛仍旧忘记了这一点。现在需要以国际协议规范小税基国家，要么他们的银行规模缩小，要么他们的银行由国际组织来担保，比如国际货币基金组织。第二，必须以与实体经济完全不同的心态进行金融监管。在其他领域，竞争可以代替监管，而金融业适用的规则与之相反：竞争越激烈，越需要调控和管理。

中国的增长和影响力，加之更多的监管和国有化的银行体系——这将导致半个世纪以来一直占主导地位的盈格鲁萨克森模式自由资本主义越发失势。什么将取而代之仍不明朗，不过替代者看起来更像某种形式的国家资本主义——或许还不完善，但与一个月之前相比，现在的模式更接近中国资本主义。

作者是牛津大学Balliol 学院院长，经济学家。