In late 2007, the world order teetered and almost fell. The contradictions of economic growth predicated on financial speculation at ever-increasing levels of abstraction were exposed when a collapse of consumer debt made unsustainable by decades of wage stagnation triggered a crisis in the banking system that spread outward from the United States to the global economy. Politicians scrambled to bail out the banks, and total chaos was averted. But the cost to ordinary citizens was immense…