Writing in The Times, the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston looks at some of the causes of the economic crisis we are now in and posits the idea that a new kind of capitalism will emerge:

Capitalism is changing in fundamental ways. What's happening will affect the relationship between business and government, between taxpayers and the private sector, between employers and employees, between investors and companies for many years to come. Arguably the crisis will turn out to be more significant for us and other developed economies than the collapse of communism.

A New Capitalism is likely to emerge from the rubble, one which may well seem fairer and less alienating than the model of the past 30 years. The system's salvation may require it to be kinder, gentler, less divisive, less of a casino in which the winner takes all.

Could it really be a more significant change than the fall of communism?  Peston argues that things have been going fundamentally wrong in the West, as compared with Asian economies, for a very long time.  Where China has been building up surpluses, our spendthrift ways now mean that there is a big price to pay.  It is this massive accumulation of debt, Peston tells us, that will force the change:

Here are some of the numbers that tell us what's gone wrong. If you combine consumer, corporate and public sector debt, the ratio of our borrowings to our annual economic output is a bit over 300 per cent, or more than £4,000 billion. Over the past decade, we borrowed and we borrowed and we borrowed: we assumed that the day when we had to pay it back would never arrive.

One of the best ways of understanding how all our debts were accumulated is to look at the gross foreign current liabilities of our banks. These rose from £1,100 billion in 1997 to £4,400 billion this year - again, about three times the size of our annual economic output.

When put in such stark terms, it is obvious that something has to give.  The oil-rich Arab states and the Chinese are sitting on massive surpluses.  The strategic terms of trade have shifted fundamentally and the West is no longer calling the shots.

Peston ends by saying that we have to come to terms with new international political and regulatory institutions able to cope with the impact of globalization.   In the past the West has been able to shape such institutions.  Will we be able to do so once more?