The week began with a triple hammer blow: America's credit downgrading, panic on global markets, riots in London. One could be forgiven for thinking the clock measuring the economic and geopolitical power of the West had just passed midnight.
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In London's Telegraph, one columnist argued that the idea that a capitalist economy could support a welfare state was collapsing before our eyes.
London in 1800 was an example of an economy without a welfare system. It had massive problems with disease and crime and people flooding in from the country as village life was disrupted by the Industrial Revolution. The solution then was to export the criminal class to Australia.
The world has changed. We don't accept boat people any more. The mob now have Facebook and mobile phones.
The English police looked overwhelmed. This follows the police's embarrassment in the News of the World scandal. Traditionally, one of the areas where the Brits have excelled is in their public institutions, among them their Parliament and tradition of law. The scandal exposed the extent to which British political leaders kowtowed to an unelected power in Rupert Murdoch and his minions.
But possibly an even more damaging scandal, revealed in 2009, was the mass rorting of expenses by British MPs. Those involved debased both the Parliament and the leadership it can provide at times like now.
In Wednesday's Independent, Michael McCarthy said Britain had always relied on what he called culture-controlled behaviour. You learned what to do (like wait your turn in queues) from custom and tradition. He distinguished Britain from the US, which he said inclined towards rule-controlled behaviour. McCarthy said what was scaring Britons was that the rioters seemed to have come from another culture.
But, in 1845, future Conservative PM Benjamin Disraeli described Britain as ''two nations (the rich and poor) between whom there was no intercourse and no sympathy; who were as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones…'' That would seem true of Britain today. It is also probably true of Australia.
The emerging debate in Britain, being argued against the backdrop of the government's austerity cuts, is whether the rioters' behaviour can be blamed on political and sociological factors or old-fashioned criminality. Surely this is not the time to be engaging in either/or thinking. One female journalist described the spectacle of the young looters as ''Lord of the Flies in adidas''. Where, she asked, were the parents?
My faith in the Brits comes from the fact that twice in the past 200 years they have risen to tremendous challenges. They cut the cancer that was the slave trade out of their political body at a time when it was the most lucrative business in the land. And they played a vital role defeating Hitler. People say that line can be rolled out too often. No, it can't. Economic tremors like the ones we felt this week were part of the story of Hitler and his early rise to power.
Americans, also, might benefit from a few minutes silently contemplating their history. After the standoff between president and Congress, their country seems leaderless.
What characterises America right now is that its capacity for civil discourse is seriously, perhaps critically, damaged. ''A house divided against itself cannot stand.'' Who said that? Abraham Lincoln.
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