I think John Robb's latest post where the Hollow State meets the Crisis of Capitalism is some kind of definitive diagnosis of our current condition.
Or at least it's an enlightening framework in which to see our whacked out world.
And let's say the global capitalist condition is sort of terminal! And the hollow states grappling with the problem are clueless and powerless shells.
Old systems die so that new systems can emerge.
Later in the comment thread Robb says something like: "Communism = central planning, Capitalism = central banking..."
We are all locked in a fatal embrace with a system in the midst of it's death rattles. It's unsettling. And you realize that the people in charge trying to "fix" the system have no clue that the patient is already brain-dead.
Ideologies die hard. Especially when they were total figments of our imagination to begin with!