How long can a capitalist democracy last when there are no jobs?

This is not intended as a political question. It's something I've been pondering since I read an opinion in the Wall Street Journal that NOBODY'S job is safe, anymore. Lawyers, doctors, tax preparers, all the bigwig I-got-a-college-degree jobs are going the same way as the auto workers and travel agents: jobs are going overseas, or made obsolete by technology.

So I began to think...what happens to a capitalist system when there are far more workers than there are jobs? Then I thought about all the stuff going down in the Middle East, where they've been famously short of jobs for a very long time now, while their populations keep increasing. Can't say there's ever been much going there by way of democracy...so, does being a democratic country make a difference to all of this? Does the fact that we get to vote for our leaders and thus, to some extent, our national policies, keep us more settled and satisfied, even though we are watching our jobs slip away?

It boils down to: What happens to a capitalist democracy when there are no jobs? How long can a capitalist democracy last when there are no jobs?

I don't necessarily have answers to these questions. I want to hear your ideas. Have at it!