After breaking down the component parts of our current "economic perfect storm," Jack Goldstone suggests the history of capitalist adaptation gives us reason not to panic:
Yet I do expect capitalism to survive and adapt, as it has done before. I expect a new round of progressive legislation to improve the position of workers, coming after 2014; I expect a new round of education (perhaps internet driven) and emphasis on personal and craft skills to reshape labor markets in advanced economies; I expect an adaptation to population aging that involves greater integration of global labor markets and rich/poor country labor exchanges; and I expect China will shift to greater democracy, better conditions for its workers, and a healthy internal market. Europe is harder to predict, as we are too close to the peak of the crisis; but one way or another Europe will go on.
The Dish 