Reading the article in the NYT online that indicates giant banks may be nationalized because there are no viable alternatives makes one wonder about whether Marx might be retrieved from the dustbin of history after all. True, his vision of a rosy communist future turned into a nightmare for those societies claiming to embrace his ideal and no one denies there is an important place for markets. But his view that capitalism would dig it's own grave appears to be spot on.
Of course, Marx's agent of revolution, the proletariat, is nowhere to be seen in the story, except insofar as it's declining share of national income has reduced economic spending and deepened a credit and investment freeze. The leading finance capitalists themselves seem to be begging for government to salvage any semblance of an economy. First, by minimal state turnover, but increasingly by begging for a mercy killing.
It sort of parallels what's going on in the political system where a long tradition of racism couold be indulged as long as it paid, but now even some white people who would never dreamed of voting for a black man with a foreign-sounding name are praying he'll save them as well.