My hope for the alt-priest replacement is Steve Keen, who seems like the only guy with a reasonable explanation why orthodox economics is so consistently useless, and a concrete policy suggestion (modern debt jubilee).
Which gets to my second thought: the current problem is not productivity growth and, in any event, productivity growth is a shibboleth (just pouring more gasoline in the engine and belching more exhaust into the sky produces more useless plastic tchotchkes, for God's sake). The current problem is debt. A very specific debt. It is the debt slavery being forced on our young people in the form of education debt and housing debt. It is crushing family formation, particularly among the most educated.
No children, no future. Not with a bang but a whimper.