Effective opposition should repose on a Scottish Enlightenment foundation of moral philosophy and political economy. However, it must break free of self-indulgent sectarianism, scholasticism and theological therapy. Above all, a new generation of market liberals must get their feet wet and hands dirty with real-world problems. That will bring a welcome retreat from a Manichean worldview and an appreciation of shades-of-grey reality. Fundamentalists blame present woes on misguided government regulation. The messy reality, in contrast, is a combination of government failure and market failure, with markets overwhelmed by financial innovation and its unanticipated consequences. Rescuing the banking system and prudential reregulation of the markets are inevitable. Fundamentalists would wish these measures away. Realists would seek to make them work with the grain of markets and prevent them from spilling over into wider market interventions.