The author examines the historical roots of the concentration of financial power in the hands of early bankers and their current manifestation as a powerful core of capitalist ruling classes who have taken over governments to serve their interests while wrecking havoc on entire societies.
Toussaint also offers what might be regarded as a strategy that could pave the way to create a different kind of society:
The banking profession is too essential to the economy to be left in private sector hands. Banks must be socialised (this implies expropriating them) and put under citizen control (of bank workers, clients, associations and representatives of local public stakeholders), as it must be subject to public service guidelines and the income its activity generates must be used for the common good.
Public debt contracted to save banks is definitely illegitimate and must be renounced. A citizen audit must determine the other illegitimate and/or illegal debts and play a part in mobilisation so an anticapitalist alternative can take shape.
