I tend to agree, actually, that much of the "retro chic" movement is driven by vogue, but that doesn't alter the fact that certain older technologies retain advantages in the modern world.

I would argue that post-WWII western Europe conducted a fairly successful experiment in socialism, which is not much removed from Marxism, at least in the sense of Marx's original texts. I'd ignore cold-war Russia, as the nature of the experiment there was not Marxist, in that the people did not have control of the means of production. There was a far closer approximation to that ideal in the democracies of western Europe.

Certainly in the UK, that post-war world of state ownership of many industries (not all appropriate candidates for state ownership) gave way in the late 70s and early 80s to unregulated capitalism - in part due to the Nixon shock and Paul Volcker's "controlled disintegration of the global economy". The widening wealth gap that has caused is, as you suggest, I think, part of the underlying social dissatisfaction that is being experienced in the old powerhouses of N America and Europe. Older people yearn for the times when there was enough work for all, and the money that was earned was enough to live comfortably. The loss of that lifestyle has occurred in tandem with the move to deregulated pure capitalism and although not all the blame can or should be laid with the economic system, it certainly bears considerable responsibility. Similar nostalgia is often heard in former Soviet countries, such as Azerbaijan...

As you suggest, this is an existential threat to liberal democracy. It seems to me that radical action is necessary, and although I wouldn't personally call myself a Marxist, many of Marx's proposals have a place in the modern world in rectifying the problem. As Varoufakis has said, Marxism must save capitalism from itself before embarking on a radical new path. Without that, we are looking at a future that may well be characterised by a decline in democratic standards - a move towards authoritarian capitalism, perhaps, which is as far from the idea of freedom as Stalinist Russia...

So having probably wandered far from the point, to return to the issue of Google... :) In my view, a new concept of a "mixed" economy is necessary. Strong governmental institutions are clearly necessary to manage capitalism, as we are living through the damage caused by decades of extreme capitalism. I think you're right, in that much of what I'm suggesting enables truly free post-capitalist organisation and economic interaction. But I don't think it's a solution on its own. My belief is that democratically elected governments should have the duty to provide the framework within which various forms of economic activity can function and to ensure that individuals are not abandoned by the economy - which is a Marxist point of view in the big picture, but not on the smaller scale, I suppose. Democracy itself needs to adapt its form to integrate new technologies, and to distribute power more widely - throughout the socio-economic spectrum. It has been undermined, perhaps fatally, by the imposition of free-market fundamentalism which has inevitably led to a system that might be more accurately described as a corporcratic kleptocracy. The maelstrom through which we will live over the next 20 years may well generate solutions - or it may merely repeat the errors committed during the 1920s and 30s. My hope, obviously, is that latter!

Final though - in the UK, we built the industrial revolution on asset-stripping our Empire. The economic impact of the loss of Empire was huge, and can be seen in stark terms in the data. But the post 1980 consensus around unregulated capitalism has led to the wealthy employing a similar tactic, enriching themselves off the proceeds of the sale of public assets. So having first asset stripped our empire, we have then asset stripped our own populations. That cannot be sustainable, and the data for the past 15 years or so tends to confirm that. New technology could reverse that process - or it could entrench it. It depends who's in control of the tech... Perhaps it shouldn't be self-interested capitalists?