My theory is that we're in danger of a global repeat of the Great Depression that hammered North America and, to a lesser extent, Europe in the 1930s.<p>The last one, in the 1920s, was caused by ill-managed prosperity, I would argue. You had sudden gains in agricultural productivity, which led to crashing commodity prices, which eventually led to rural poverty. One might have "expected" farmers to move into the cities and become the new middle class, and some did, but that doesn't work out so well when thousands or millions of poor, hungry people are doing the same thing. What was just "rural poverty" (of course, half the country was still rural) in 1925 became more widespread by 1927-28 (noticeable slipping demand for consumer products) and finally was recognized as a Great Depression after it tanked the stock market in 1929-32.<p>We have, in 2015, a <i>lot</i> of ill-managed prosperity. We have a culture in Silicon Valley that <i>glorifies</i> ill-managed prosperity. (What else do you call funding <i>Clinkle</i>?) And the same thing that happened to food prices in 1900-30 (slow at first, accelerating toward the end) is happening to <i>almost all human labor</i> in 1985-2015.<p>It may not end well. Including the damage brought by the war, I'd argue that most of Europe didn't get out of the Depression (manifest somewhat differently over there, especially in the fascist countries) until the late 1950s.