Financial markets are not free – they're one of the last bastions of socialism

From QE to rate rise delays to Beijing's stock market interventions, the world's policymakers have done everything possible to boost asset prices

You can't buck the market, so said Margaret Thatcher back in the late 1980s. Maybe you can't, but the world's policymakers are giving it their best shot.

Let's just consider the context. During August there was a big sell-off in shares amid concerns that the Chinese economy was in trouble. The declines, however, followed a long bull market in which prices were supported by the quantitative easing programmes pursued by central banks rather than by underlying economic strength. A true believer in free markets would have seen the recent sell-off as both inevitable and healthy.