The Party has a harder time making the economy do its bidding, but it can still mobilize the system in an emergency. At the end of 2008, when the economy dropped into a hole with the rest of the world in the financial crisis, the Party ordered banks to lend, which they did with gusto. In the opening months of 2010, the Party reversed course, and told the banks to slow down, a diktat followed with much greater reluctance, but followed nonetheless. The
