> There is even a, small but real, possibility things could collapse into a failed state or dictatorship if the economic situation spirals out of control.
I said the chance was "small", you are saying there is no chance but let's examine that a little more closely. First of all there is no country on earth that doesn't have some chance of descending into tyranny in a fairly short timespan if things go bad economically, we've seen it countless times. I wouldn't let your patriotism (I presume) blind you to that fact. So if we take the best governed countries and say the chances of dictatorship are "tiny", and in some of the less well governed first world countries it's "very small", then it's probably being quite kind to say an incredibly corrupt South American third (second?) world country on the brink of economic disaster only has a "small" chance of going badly.
Not a chance. At all.