[olegious]

What makes you think that Democracy is the best system? I think the reason why the 1st world nations are successful is not due to Democracy but due to capitalism.

I realize that the two go hand in hand (capitalism/free market requires a hands off/light regulatory approach), something that so far only a Democracy has been able to deliver (although it will be interesting to see how the Chinese model evolves).

[yzhengyu]

I would say first world nations are economically successful because their economies became diverse, i.e. a heavily distributed, highly concurrent and parallel system of systems.

Given our current circumstances, it seems capitalism - i.e the central idea that a capitalist works for profit, etc - is now appearing to create economies which are now centralized around people/institutions which engage in nothing moving capital from one place to another, one industry to another, without the attendant in-betweens of the businessmen. And there's goes the concurrent property.

And I wouldn't knock democracy much. You might hate American politics now, but the Chinese version isn't better by any much.

[olegious]

I agree that engaging in the movement of capital doesn't build any real value, however this applies to only certain sectors of the economy- if you look at places like Silicon Valley, we are creating value through the start up scene, and this is real value because it creates jobs and new ecosystems that fuel further growth.

I think you will begin seeing a trend away from the "no value creation" capitalism of the past 20 years- we're seeing people becoming more interested in physical inventions (see the popularity of the Make Fest and workshop clubs) and a rebirth of US industry (opportunities will open up as China and other "low-cost" centers see wage growth and people see other openings in fields such as shoe production, just to name one.).