'Capitalism', as it was theorized by Marx and heralded by 'free-market' economists was dead prior to WWII. We have been experiencing it's death throes since then, with only large actual growth periods brought on by government intervention, or occasional technological development of which any benifits eventually gets cannibalized by marketing and advertising (which is the same thing that happened to the original system). This is the stagnantsystem, it just doesn't feel like it because we have yet to see what retirement buys us as opposed to what it bought the boomers.

It feels better because we just keep shifting where capital is, from main street to the mall back to main street, but it can't be in both places at the same time because it ultimately has to be wrapped up in itself (finance), which means that most capital is reflective of nothing and produces nothing. The interesting thing about capitalism though, is that though it is 'adaptive' it ultimately is a catalyst to any system, ripping it apart at lighting speed in comparison to anything else, so it could be dead within the century. Certainly Western style neo-liberal finance capitalism will. Chinese capitalism or socialism with Chinese characteristics, is likely a model for how things might look, if we are lucky. If we are unlucky it will be everything bad about that system with none of the benifits.