An extra hazard lurks in the turmoil that has engulfed the global financial system. It’s the notion that the crisis repudiates market capitalism. Governments everywhere must resist the political temptations of this misjudgment.The idea that capitalism’s validity died along with various financial luminaries sprouts from two intellectual seeds. One of them is latent socialism. The belief that the state should play a central role in the economy, including outright ownership of core assets, will always have some support. So when capitalism yields unsavory consequences, a blind turn in political support toward its reciprocal is natural, however unwarranted.Confidence failedCapitali...