The ghost of a dead economist haunted the Zermatt Summit, a new annual event on the subject of “humanising globalisation” held earlier this month. Several speakers at the three-day conference denounced the Nobel prize-winning monetarist economist, Milton Friedman, as a charlatan who had had a pernicious influence on capitalism over the past four decades.

The reason for their disgust? Mr Friedman, who died in 2006, believed companies should prioritise their shareholders above all other stakeholders. In a New York Times magazine article published in 1970, he wrote: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-10 and the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, such views are hardly fashionable. Several speakers at the Zermatt Summit believe the time has come for Mr Friedman's theories to be consigned to the dustbin of history.