Despite the best efforts of politicians and policy-makers, the ledger of blame and punishment for the financial crisis is never going to balance. The best we can hope for is a humbled financial services industry and some sensible regulatory reform.

Try as governments might, they cannot expect to single out those responsible for the recent financial crisis, and the recession that followed, and make them pay for their folly. A punitive tax on bankers’ pay packets, which is being imposed in France and Britain, or a levy on banks generally, as the U.S. is proposing, is not going to do the trick.

These sorts of steps may make taxpayers, who have borne the brunt of these events, feel a bit better. And such actions can help politicians claim that the culprits are being held to account just a bit. But that sort of revenge is the most they can hope to accomplish.

The one area in which policy-makers can make a positive difference is through regulatory reforms that remediate some of the fundamental flaws in the financial system. While the crisis exposed plenty of bad business judgment, foolish financial decisions and greedy behaviour, it has also revealed a host of weaknesses in the prevailing regulatory structure.

Some of these weaknesses are being addressed through the creation of a tougher capital-adequacy framework for global banks, including leverage limits and liquidity standards.

Even so, the effects will not be entirely fair. Firms that did nothing wrong in the years leading up to the crisis will face tighter regulation, hampering their returns. And much of the resulting costs are likely to flow downhill to the industry’s clients — businesses and households who didn’t benefit from the upside will nevertheless have to pay the costs on the downside.

The sad fact is that there will be no real justice here. But that can’t be sufficient reason to back away from reform. Bankers will no doubt resist, but capital rules must be more restrictive, and many areas of the financial markets must be made more transparent. Such steps should help make the system as a whole more stable.

Exacting revenge on bankers may feel good. But the real goal should be making the critical function of finance a more sustainable enterprise for the long term.