It seems to me that capitalism has already exhausted its once progressive historical tendency -- its inability to incorporate much of the world's poor legally and formally into the chain of exchange value creation is evidence of that. Capitalism was progressive only in so far as it dissolved feudal relations of production. That destruction is now mostly over. Today, what capitalism and its corollary imperialism destroy is the state's power to provide material foundations for modernity. Much of Africa is a good example of this. The next to go may be the Middle East: Iraq's per capita income was about the same as Portugal's in 1980 <http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1980/0818/037_print.html>; the sanctions turned it into one of the poorest countries in the world; and the war has made it just about unlivable, pushing it on the path to Afghanistan.
For countries like China and India*, a path is open to become outsourcing destinations of multinationals; for countries like Bolivia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, there is resource populism. What about Haitians, Palestinians, Somalis, etc.? There is nothing, not even the minimum foundations of modernity.
* As interest rates go up in the United States and Japan, good times for "emerging markets" -- except China -- may be soon over, too. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>