Some observers are sceptical about the geopolitical fallout from any financial crisis. "Geopolitical events like the disappearance of Mao in China, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, have far greater consequences than financial shocks," says Robert Cooper, director-general of external affairs at the Council of the European Union. "Look at the technology bubble in the 1990s. There were no obvious consequences. Or the 1970s crisis with oil prices. Any geopolitical consequences rapidly disappeared."
Yet he admits that two financial crises of the 20th century - the Depression of the 1930s and economic collapse in Europe after the second world war - did have important results. The former led to the rise of Nazi Germany, the isolationism of America and the outbreak of war. The latter, far more positive, resulted in the Marshall Plan that financed the German Wirtschafts-wunder and economic revival across the rest of the continent, which led to the eventual establishment of the EU.
The lessons of the 1930s also led to the setting up of the Bretton Woods institutions - the World Bank and International Monetary Fund - to bring monetary order to the main industrialised states and a system of crisis management that has survived for more than 60 years. But today their legitimacy and representativeness are being called into question.