In his brilliant article 'Global Boom, Pandemic, Crash: Is History Just Repeating Itself?' Andrew Nikiforuk states that we face the end of a 300-year cycle, as did previous far-flung empires. With the following rhetorical questions he points to the way to move out of decadence:

“Can we build a simpler society that can survive random shocks? Can we re-localize the economy, tax the rich, support small farms, simplify our brutal technologies, power down and distribute authority more even...