[Haskell-cafe] the Haskell notion of class vis-a-vis universal algebra?

Hello, What is the relationship of a Haskell class to universal algebra? (a refresher ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_algebra) ... it seems that all types that belong to a class are models? E.g. all "monads" have to satisfy the "monad laws" stated in the Monad class, i.e. equational axioms! Vasili