One of Dubai's most eminent bankers recently put it to me like this: "Capitalism has won the war, now it has to show it can manage the peace."
The war he referred to was the ideological confrontation between the capitalist system and the socialist or communist alternatives that raged for most of the 20th century.
Capitalism "won" when the Soviet Union, the biggest proponent of the communist idea, collapsed in 1991.
The peace that followed has not been an easy one. In politics, new ideologies arose to take the place of communism, such as militancy and nationalism.
In economics, the post-Soviet era has been characterised by a succession of ever deepening crises: the dotcom bust of 2001, the credit crunch of 2008 and the near-collapse of the global financial system of the following year. Now, the world is suffering a sovereign debt crisis spawned in Europe but with potentially catastrophic implications for the whole world.
Capitalism has so far not been able to solve this succession of problems. Can it get itself out of the mess it has created? That is the question that will be on the minds of the 2,600 movers and shakers who gather today in the Alpine resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum. There is no easy answer.
On this page today, Klaus Schwab says there has to be a "transformation" in the way "outdated" capitalism works if it is to solve the complex problems of the world. That might sound a bit rich coming from the man who, his anti-capitalist critics allege, has made a career and a fortune out of the elite club of "masters of the universe" he founded 42 years ago.
But the fact a man of his impeccably capitalist credentials is talking of the need for radical reform proves there is a crisis of confidence in the prevailing economic ideology.
You do not have to be living in a tent outside St Paul's Cathedral in London, or an igloo in Davos, to see that capitalism has gone wrong. Fear of economic recession, growing inequalities of wealth, and the "moral hazard" of the cycle of busts, bail-outs and bonuses, show that the great wealth-creating machine has developed a potentially fatal defect.
In particular, as Mr Schwab points out, young people have lost faith in the system that should ensure their future. When the next generation sees no hope (one of the characteristics of the Arab Spring) it can lead to large-scale societal breakdown.
So what must capitalism do to fix itself? Some economic theorists believe it must achieve seven goals: return to economic stability; repair the failing international financial system; reduce blatant inequalities; reinforce corporate governance standards; develop fair taxation systems; avoid political interference; and construct effective global regulatory frameworks.
Each one of those tasks is a serious challenge; together, they seem to form an insuperable barrier to the kind of transformation Davos envisages.
Others believe that the system, which has proved remarkably resilient and adaptable in the past, is already in the process of changing. The old free-market variety of capitalism, which worked for the western world for two centuries, is already giving way to a new system of state-directed capitalism.
This is the economic model that has made China the fastest growing economy in the world; it is also the system embraced by most Middle East countries, where governments have ownership or control of most aspects of business life.
But it is also the system that has led to corruption, graft and inefficiency in Russia, the former Soviet republics of central Asia, and in India. It is still too early to hold up Chinese-style "totalitarian capitalism" as the way forward.
In previous years, I doubt the grandees gathering in Davos would want anything to do with state capitalism. Most of them were brought up in the western school where the invisible hand of the free market ruled supreme.
Now, with western capitalism in disrepute as a result of the financial and sovereign debt crises, and with an increasing number of the event's participants coming from China and other non-western countries, the debate will be all the keener.
Capitalism saw off the Soviets, but now it has to change or die. Davos 2012 will give some indication whether it can survive.