At some point it became clear in the Soviet Union that in spite of a charismatic new leader, that the SYSTEM, could not be saved. At some point in the 5th century, it was clear that Rome, as a SYSTEM, could not be saved. It is now clear that the GM business model, as a SYSTEM, can not be saved.
I have to admit that I cannot imagine a set of actions that the new president could take that would preserve THE SYSTEM. An economy based on credit fueled consumption with the most important parts of life, food, energy and credit all dependent on fragile over-centralized systems that themselves depend on a credit system that is broken.
What if we cannot be saved? Can the shopping society be saved? Can the US defense costs be sustained? In the Soviet Union, the cost of competeing with Nato, overwhelmed the ability of the state to pay. Is the US now faced with the same defense/cost/value issue?
Let's look at what happens when the SYSTEM fails.
When the centralized distribution systems fail, all the nodes get cut off and isolated. Food, energy, money and security all collapse back to the local. If you cannot feed yourself, heat your homes, exchange goods and look after your security you are in deep trouble. In highly centralized states, the nodes are helpless. They cannot deliver the basics for life. Imagine New York with no oil and no food with intermittent electricity. Imagine this happening for only a 2 week period. Then imagine being cut off semi permanently. You think I exaggerate? This happened in 1989 - 95 in cities like Moscow and Kiev.
In the Soviet Union there was a history of dealing with famine and the people immediately went back to local gardens. But the big shift was in the power of the mob. The mob became the owners of all else and as the economy came back, they have become the central players.
In Cuba, the state held on to security and gave the power to the people to find the best way to set up a local food and power system.
Food in Rome was not just food but also Oil. This was a world where muscles, human and animal did the work. So when the "tankers" from Africa no longer came to Ostia, the system had to collapse. Rome's population fell from 700,000 in 400 ad to 30,000 in 500 ad. When we see how helpless we are to stop a few men in motor boats from sealing the Gulf, we can see the risk to our own energy/food system. For recall, our food system depends on oil.
The failure of the food/energy delivery system forced the end.
