There are some massive challenges coming up that provide compelling reasons to adopt a different approach to political economy as matter of urgency, see WEF Global Risks and Jackson and Webster . This is a short summary. I am trying to retain balance and not be unduly alarmist or pessimistic. Also look at the follow on discussion in Possible Futures, it is all too easy to envisage a perfect storm in the confluence of several of these sometime in the next 100 years and give up.
What might the future look like?
No one including me, can predict the future. All we can do is try and take a balanced view using current knowledge. Even then any sort of projection into the future remains difficult; as the finance industry says, past performance is no guide to future performance. If you want to see the next business failure look at those who are fat and happy now.
In the future, not only is the devil in the detail, but things can get better or worse. Broad shapes can be discerned but history happens one day at a time and each action causes a reaction. The various serious challenges we face cannot simply be extrapolated into the future: that would be a case of giving dominance to a single factor.