It may take more than an economic collapse to cause a regeneracy. We did not have a regeneracy during the Great Depression. It was finally managed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A very sudden total economic collapse might cause a regeneracy, but it seems unlikely that this will be the case. The most probably scenario at this time, IMHO, would be a nuclear explosion in a US harbor or the outbreak of nuclear war in Asia. I consider the first to be most likely, though it undoubtedly will lead to the second in short order.
And now, a peeve of mine. Words have meanings, especially words referring to governmental systems such as Socialism, Facism, Republic, Democracy and so forth. Common misusage has greatly damaged these words to the point that they are often used to mean "whatever I want them to mean". Yet they do have meanings.
Short definition with link to Webster online below.
Socialism means a social system in which government owns and controls all means of production, private property is limited or nonexistant.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
Communism in THEORY means a social status in which the state has withered away and vanished, in PRACTICE it means a totalitarian government that owns and controls virtually everything though it may have single party elections. This is what leads to that conundrum in which people say communism has never been tried, it probably never can be tried save on a very limited scale, because I can't imagine any state in which the powerful will willingly "wither away".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism
Facism is genrally used to refer to Nazi Germany or Adolf Hitler and his particular policies, which is at best partially correct, and webster seems to somewhat perpetuate this error.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
Italy was actually the birthplace of Facism, and it actually refers to a totalitarian state buttressed by irrational racial or ethnic or religous superiority beliefs in combination with an economy that is independant of the state in a sense, but is bent to the desires of the state. It should be noted that large corporations did well during the Facist rule of Germany and Italy. Mussolini referred to the corporate state of facism in a number of places.
http://www.historyguide.org/europe/duce.html
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... solini.htm
The word, incidentally, refers to the Roman fasces, a symbol of unity, which lives on today in many places, among them the US House of Representatives which has a number of them on display, and on the back of the mercury dime. (No, I'm not saying the House is full of Facists. Sigh.)
Many believe Democracy to refer to a system in which everyone votes, which is incorrect. Classic Democracy refers to Athens or Greece in general, in which all CITIZENS participated in government, usually after the age of 30 or so. However, 90% or more of those persons residing in these countries were slaves who could not so participate. No country has ever given the vote to everyone, there are always limits of age or sex or requirements that one hold or own property worth a certain amount, etc. In any event, Democratic states in the classic sense do not exist in modern times (well, there is a small state in Africa that comes close, but never mind that).
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy
Republics are states in which people vote to choose representatives who meet in assembly to decide on what laws are suitable for the governing of the state, within limits imposed by an overriding law.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic
Most modern governments are republics, with economic elements ranging from socialism to facism embedded in them. A factual analysis of the US government shows attributes of both, as would an analysis of the British government or the government of Japan. This doesn't make the US a socialism any more than a facism, nor the others.
Finally, the most important difference between the modern republic and all former systems of government is the separation of the head of state from the power of the purse. This system was probably invented by pirates (yes, I'm serious) to control the power of their captains, as they became pirates to get away from the British system of giving money to the captain of a vessel to accomplish a voyage. Since the captain got to keep the money left over, there was a very rapid race to the bottom for outlays of food, drink and so forth, to the point where men would mutiny and seize the ship. At which point, they had to invent something to prevent the same thing from happening again with a corrupt captain and officers mistreating them. So they invented the office of quartermaster, who controlled the money of the ship, and was in control of all stores, supplies and outlays of money and kept the books. This was adopted in our modern governments and we see it in the US government each year in the contentious passage of the budget.
Okay, I apologize, enough lecturing on something I'm sure you already know. It's just that careless usage of words bothers me, probably my training in semantics peeking through.
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