The current economic and preceding financial crises seem to provide evidence in favour of the self-destruction thesis of capitalism. Responses to the crisis have been polarised. Some suggest that regulatory changes are all that is needed. Others suggest the need to change the economic system by developing a new global economic ethic. The first is too limited, the second too Utopian. This article suggests that a Maclntyrean virtue ethics approach provides both a more convincing diagnosis of the problem and leads to a more workable prescription. First, we need to understand the intemal contradictions of the tradition that has developed of how to 'do' business. Then we need the virtues to be exercised inside practices and institutions. But virtue