"Occupy Wall Street" type of protests are now spreading across many nations. Every economic crisis makes things difficult for people especially the poor and those in the margins. When economic crisis is triggered off by financial crisis, things take much longer to come back to longer. History of financial crises testify to this fact. If you go through such history, you would know that the current global financial crisis may not show signs of getting over before 2013-14 at the earliest, if the past is anything to go by. Some of the side-effects of the remdies will remain one one or two generations for many countries. What makes things a little different from the kind of financial crisis-triggered economic crisis is that now, we are all globalised and news travels fast and far. There are media to give vent to discontent and give it a critical mass. There is Facebook, Twitter, TVand so on. A prolonged global economic crisis will test the patience of more and more people. That puts prevalent systems, which have extablished primacy over time, such as democracy and market-led economic systems, under enormous pressure. If a system doesn't work why would people respect them? What is frightening is that there are no other well-tested alternatives. This leaves the fiield open for demagogues and pretenders who could manipulate systems and people channelising discontents. We have enough examples of people who in the past have effectively undermined democracy and market economies. In the near future, could world change from the way we know it? It may well be.
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