That book blames democracy more than currency debasement, but the basic expectation was that these unhealthy types of personality would become more valued in western society in the following years. He mentions the idea of dynastic and celebrity politicians who basically milk government while it’s secretly run by a cabal of career bureaucrats. Churches would continue to consolidate into mega-churches and become more consumeristic while small businesses would be squashed by lobbyists and billionaire investors. It has a very “follow the money” approach (and actually uses that quite a lot) but doesn’t go so far as to look at the money printer as the primary corrupting force.

I know Zakaria is on the video news now, but I don’t really follow him anymore. It’s kind of ironic, because I thought one of the critiques in the book was of the transfer from print to tv journalism. Maybe I’m remembering that wrong. All this to say, his views may have changed. He definitely saw a lot of our modern unhappy trends coming back in the day though.