Basically, human avarice and greed, if unleashed without restraint, produce some very nasty results, with enormous wealth being steadily concentrated in the hands of a relative handful of super wealthy corporations and individuals. 

This is, inevitably, very bad for democracy, as the managerial and owner classes can and do exert enormous political influence to defend and entrench their economic interests.

I think that the use of the Marxist term "class" is entirely appropriate to describe these people as they manifest the main characteristic associated with this term, being in effective control over the production and distribution of critical goods and services.

In Papua New Guinea, for example, we have the spectacle of a prime minister and government acting in support of vested interests and powerful elites, all the while in open defiance of judicial authority and the rule of law.  

Most members of parliament and the national media have been either unwilling or unable to defend the rule of law, which lies at the very heart of an effective and functional democracy.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, President Erdogan is exerting all of his influence and efforts to accumulate more and more executive power, slowly stripping away the hard won secular rights established by the country's great founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Erdogan's biggest political success to date has been to blackmail Europe into allowing Turkish citizens to have unrestricted travel rights in Europe in exchange for cutting off the influx of refugees from the Middle East conflicts. This is a reflection of his ruthless application of power, as well as the weakness and division amongst Europe's political leaders. 

In the USA, the current presidential election seems likely to end up being a contest between a multi-billionaire property developer with no experience at any level of government and a woman whose track record can best be described as patchy and much of whose financial support apparently comes from powerful Wall Street based financiers.

So, we a left with the dismal prospect of some of the least impressive presidential candidates in modern history being likely to fight it out for the role of "leader of the free world".

In Australia, we have a multi-millionaire former merchant banker pitted against a former union official, very much reflecting the traditional capital versus labour contest which dominated much of politics throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is arguable that what is happening in PNG is merely a more extreme example of a pernicious malaise that has spread across the democratic world in the post-communist era.

In the absence of any serious contest of ideas from the left of politics, the so-called neo-conservatives have been able to dominate the political process, imposing their ideology upon us all.

Thus, we are all enjoined to enthusiastically sign up to what I regard as "casino capitalism", where it is winner takes all and the devil takes the hindmost.

Iin Australia, despite the object lesson offered by what happened to the US and European property markets in 2007-08, we have inflated the "mother of all property bubbles", indebting ourselves to a level unrivalled anywhere else in the world in the process.

All this is in the utterly mistaken belief that everyone can be a winner in the property "casino". How dumb have we been to swallow this nonsense. More importantly, how much suffering will have to be endured when the wheel of fortune stops spinning, as it always does?

We are rapidly regressing into a form of capitalism that prevailed in the 18th and 19th centuries. True, its worst excesses have been disguised or curbed because a "rising tide has lifted all boats", but there is now abundant evidence that this metaphorical tide is no longer rising.

Across the world, central banks are desperately trying to reinflate their countries' economies by slashing interest rates and engaging in quantitative easing (basically throwing money at the financial system). In the face of clear evidence that these tactics have failed, other than to inflate huge asset bubbles, central banks are supposedly contemplating using "helicopter money" that is, literally handing out cash to citizens to spend.

There are no precedents for such action and no-one knows what their long term impacts may be, so we are truly entering unexplored economic territory.

It has been said that any fool can make money when the economic tide is rising but what happens when the tide begins to fall and the boats are left high and dry, as must inevitably happen? What then for the people?

Extending this analogy, PNG is paddling along with its little canoe already shipping a fair bit of water. With the tide running out faster, the captain's capacity to guide the canoe safely to shore becomes extremely important.

And what is PNG's captain doing to guide the canoe to safety? Why, he is busily arguing about his right to be captain, not focussing on what is happening to the "ship of state".

But PNG's captain is not alone in this. All over the world, it seems that elected leaders are focussed primarily on staying in power, not on the task of leadership. They spend their time reacting to events rather than acting to shape those events.

The world's democracies seem to have spawned a generation of politicians who, with few exceptions, do not know how to govern (as distinct from managing or administering or oversighting the routine work of government).

If, by chance, Donald Trump should become president of the USA, we will see the ultimately expression of this tendency, with a man having precisely zero experience in government gaining the world's top government job. What could possibly go wrong?

PNG's elected leaders, in the main, are sleep walking into disaster, albeit in company with many politicians in other countries.

That they are not alone will be of no comfort to the ordinary Papua New Guineans, who will bear the brunt of the ensuing socio-economic debacle.