Quote of the week from Daniel Finkelstein in the Times. As a fan of the Beatles music I was intrigued.

All this week the Beatles have been in the headlines in the UK because it is 40 years since they split-up, and they have re-released their CD's and a new computer game whereby people can re-live their musical performances (ala' Guitar Hero).

So how does Finkelstein come to this conclusion about a group that many claimed helped launch the hippy "summer of love"?

"Appreciating the role of Epstein, allows one to appreciate that the Beatles are as much a triumph of commerce as of art. They were not merely brilliant musicians fusing avant-garde influences with rhythm and blues music. They were a showbiz act managed by an inspired entrepreneur. They weren’t simply class rebels against the Establishment, they were the brilliant product of capitalist enterprise, the early pioneers of globalisation."

However, he goes further. The state was also responsible for the demise of the Beatles too.

"Bramwell blames Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, directly. “There were enough new regulations and red tape to tie up free enterprise for years ... One minute Swinging London was like a giant theme park, the envy of the world, then they — Wilson and his gang — closed it down. It was as if they went out and stamped on it.”

The reason why the influence of the 1960s endures is because it was the dawn of modern consumer capitalism. It was this culture — of commerce and consumption — rather than the counter-culture that made the era and now shapes out time. And of this era, Brian Epstein was a symbol."