California, those funky Spenglerians the Red Hot Chili Peppers noted, is “the final location” of Western civilization. True, you can go no further west, but that hasn’t stopped California from going south. What happens after the golden decades of Californication?

Brazilification. This is not the title of a samba album or a depilation technique. Brazilification is a political condition, coined by Douglas Coupland in his 1991 novel, Generation X: “The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.”