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Laisser-faire never was quite what it seemed. It required a lot of state power to create and a lot of state power was acquired under the guise of free markets. The process hasn't finished yet. Globalization, far from undermining the nation state, is fostering stronger governments capable of standing up to the new forces. Laisser-faire is over, re-regulation has begun and welfare spending is about to rocket, especially in the emerging markets. The 21st century will witness more varied forms of capitalism than ever before, each with a differing role for the market and a strong role for the state, argues Brian Caplen

Paul Volcker, chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board from 1979 to 1987, chairman of Wolfensohn & Co from 1988 to 1996, now 71, looks back over 30 years at a world banking system which "lurched from one crisis to another" from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and a global financial system which is "still pretty creaky". He fears for small, vulnerable countries, which are like rowboats in an ocean of volatility. He talked to David Shirreff.

How does an emerging-market sovereign extract the best from its underwriters? Argentina, praised for its borrowing success, has learnt its tough tactics the hard way. Gone are the days when freewheeling bankers could sell the republic a pup. Now they are met with controlled aggression and barbed comments alternating with soothing charm. Good cop, bad cop, Argentine-style, has shaved basis points off the nation's funding costs. Brian Caplen reports on the team behind the strategy

Today's short-termism doesn't encourage the study of history, unless it's reduced to a set of data points. Here we test that little-used part of the brain which stores longer-term facts. They were important at the time, but the detail has long-since vanished in the white noise of yesterday's markets. Most of the answers can be found somewhere in this anniversary edition

Corporate restructuring is bound to generate frictions. Even so, long-suffering shareholders in Hong Kong red chip Guangnan hardly expected to witness a public row between two of the world's leading accountancy firms KPMG and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.