I still like the point made by Spengler, David Warren, and Pope Benedict long ago: if you lack the ethical and moral substrate for approaching the material world, the free market will take you to hell in a handbasket more efficiently than any other model.

We’re like the alcoholic that has to hit bottom and then join A.A. to turn things around. Hitting bottom looks like it’s going to be far from a soft landing. And liberals don’t seem like very good candidates for a 12-step program that involves recognition of one’s powerlessness to control everything, taking a clear-eyed moral inventory, making restitution for past transgressions and the like.