No one alive knows what a capitalist society is, aside from a handful of indigenous tribes isolated from the modern world. That truly reap what they sow.

To my mind, capitalism is not the problem. Ideas by thenselves rarely are. The problem is ideologically-blinkered capitalists who reduce society to ridiculous simplicity and cloak their selfish and destructive activities with righteousness and a thin veneer of intellectual respectability.

Capitalism used to be popular, now it has poisoned its own social roots. The future is socialist tinged.

After Capitalism failed in 2008, plunging the west into an economic catastrophe, the banks were taken into public ownership and vast amounts of public money were pumped into the economy to bail out corporate greed. Capitalism survived because we privatise the profits but socialise the debt. In the UK, poor wages across the board were routinely subsidised by tax credits paid by the government, effectively meaning public money propped up private companies and corporations which weren't paying their employees enough to actually live on.

Capitalism without rules and regulations is a danger to those not sitting at the top.

We have seen the removal of the safeguards and protections, resulting in environmental, social, and economic consequences.

Do you have a job?

The pragmatic reality is that you need a little of both, which is what social democracies try to provide. The weakness of outright socialism and/or communism is the reduced incentives for everyone to pull their fair share or strive to innovate, improve without some existential motivation. Capitalism provides those incentives but winds up being self-destructive and dysfunctional because it ignores the needs of many and the environment for the few and greedy if unchecked by regulation. Both approaches lead to dictatorships, either fascism through those that the richest capitalists can control or Communists with a capital C through alpha dogs that can impose the system on all. Hybrid social democracies try to avoid the pitfalls of both while harnessing the good parts of each.

Capitalism leverages human nature. It works because it favours how humans behaves. No system is perfect, but no other system offers so much opportunity to realize human potential. Don't be so afraid to get out there and confront your competition. Your fear is dripping from your every word.

My grand analysis of recent history is that we are (the West) in a slow death spiral between fascism and neoliberalism, with aspects of the former gaining ascendency and the latter (with periodic mild resistance) co-adapting to it more and more.

Capitalism is the system that works just needs tweaking- better welfare net, higher living wage, union representation for private workers, lowing the gender pay gap and finally realising that housing is a human right and maybe redefining housing all together.

Get that sorted and we'll have the perfect system!

Really a giant pyramid scheme. The whole premise is that you always need more people for it to work. It's not a self sustaining system,....which is one reason I support finding something else that works better in today's world. I don't think that's socialism or communism either really, unless they are well regulated and have sufficient checks and balances.....

I will say that I don't agree with all those items above. It isn't capitalism that destroys the environment. It's poor regulation.

You’re not casually gloomy, are you?

Capitalism is not central consolidated control.

If you want to know how central control of an economy fails, just take a good look at how the Soviet system collapsed.

You blame their competition. Okay. Obviously their competition is superior.

*Drops mic*

Thanks for the post.

The inequality we see, the war in Ukraine, the ecosystem meltdown - no accident. Capitalism always concentrates the power without strong popular control.

i have trouble saying this to my socialist friends but I support the revolution yet am a small business owner.

Socialism is communism without guns where everyone is equally poor

Capitalism is self destruction.

Capitalism is a tool. Like any tool, it has its time and purpose. Even Marx and Engles considered Capitalism to be a necessary phase in preparing a nation for communism.

Capitalism is but a tool. I happen to believe it is time to start reaching for the next tool. The largest problem of capitalism is not that people disagree about when it is time to move to the next tool, it is that some people have bought into the myth that it is the only tool that can work.

That's the problem when discussing the problems of capitalism. People assume you want to try pure socialism instead.