[indthkr]

"....their 'capitalism miracle' going"

I certainly agree with your placement of capitalism in quotes as it refers to the Chinese.

"....provided we haven't collapsed utterly"

Hopefully, we won't get anywhere near that situation. One thing to be sure of: organizational decline will not occur gradually, over a long period of time. It's a highly non-linear process, further exacerbated by today's highly connected world.

[RightWhale]

That is probably the case. It might be that the organization is robust so that it is not easily disrupted, or there could be a weakness we are not aware of that would let go of everything if broken. Buckminster Fuller developed his stick and wire Tensegrity Structures that were strong and looked like nothing was holding them up even while you could jump on one of them and it would just bounce a little, but if a thread snapped it would collapse utterly.

The Ds even now are bouncing with renewed vigor on our Corporate system. Let's hope they don't find a critical tension member.