Time to start that old death watch on capitalism

Washington

THE global capitalist system has been having a tough decade. We can probably all agree on that.

Lots of explanations have been offered for why things have been going so poorly: inadequate regulation, excessive regulation, excessive monetary easing, inadequate fiscal stimulus, inequality, "secular stagnation", you name it.

Wolfgang Streeck has another possibility for you to consider: Maybe capitalism is dying. Mr Streeck is a German sociologist, the emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute f…