Sean Wilenz makes the same point I did earlier:
The collapse of Enron points out the failure of Market Fundamentalism as an ideology.

TAP: Vol 13, Iss. 4. A Scandal for our Time:. Sean Wilentz.
The Enron affair is shaping up as quite possibly the largest political and financial scandal in American history. Untold billions of dollars have vanished down the drain in the biggest bankruptcy filing ever. Political connections ensnare every level of the Bush administration. Even more fearsomely than in the past, Americans will learn some hard lessons: that business corrupts politics, that capitalism cannot be trusted simply to the capitalists, and that without government safeguards, the public trust and the public treasury are always at grave risk.

Enron dwarfs the momentous insider infamies of the Gilded Age and the Jazz Age. But it is also special for other historical reasons. It signals a crisis in modern conservative thinking and politics -- a crisis that has less to do with bad character than it does with scandalously bad federal policy. Enron is the belated culmination of the age of Ronald Reagan, George Bush the elder, and Newt Gingrich. It stands as a monument to the era of deregulation and laissez-faire business politics that has endured for more than 20 years.

Good artilce from Robert Samuelson on how stock options give a huge incentive for executives to keep the stock high, no matter the cost in honesty or the long term health of the business.

Stock Option Madness (washingtonpost.com) Stock options foster a corrosive climate that tempts many executives, and not just those at Enron, to play fast and loose when reporting profits........

......To influence stock prices, executives can issue optimistic profit projections. They can delay some spending, such as research and development (this temporarily helps profits). They can engage in stock buybacks (these raise per-share earnings, because fewer shares are outstanding). And, of course, they can exploit accounting rules. Even temporary blips in stock prices can create opportunities to unload profitable options.

The point is that the growth of stock options has created huge conflicts of interest that executives will be hard-pressed to avoid.