The consequences of burst bubbles in Japan in the 1980’s and in the United States last year are powerful reasons why China’s government has acted with such determination, while the legacy of a functioning centralized system may explain why it has proven capable of doing so decisively. After all, although modern market economics provides a sound framework for policymaking – as Chinese bureaucrats are eagerly learning – the idea of a planned economy emerged in the nineteenth century as a counter-orthodoxy to address market failures.