We have tried both communism and capitalism; and at the end of the day, in either system, the scum rises to the top.
Communism needs slavery to be successful, and to a slightly lesser degree, so does capitalism!
What other possible explanation could there be for the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots, particularly in the English speaking capitalistic world.
If we were guided by the happiness index, we would take a leaf from the book of the Scandinavians.
We need to keep incentive as a means to keep productive outcomes.
We can't all be rocket scientists, brain surgeons of computer whiz kids.
And no, not all reward boils down to just the mighty dollar or entering into some sort of mindless competition to see who can accrue the most of it in a single lifetime or die the richest?
This anomaly indicates some are crippled for all practical purposes, by their own poverty consciousness.
Some of us even believe, others need to have less so we might have more.
This is highly flawed thinking and ignores the basic tenement of economics.
If those with the least have more, the incomes of all the higher socioeconomic rungs, will also improve.
The second trick is to remove all the drones and parasitic wealth suckers, so that the actual increases are not simply squandered or wasted on entirely unproductive outcomes.
We need something new and different.
That something is cooperative capitalism comrade.
That something is a vastly reformed and simplified tax system, that obliges everyone to pay a fair share.
And in so doing, massively reduces the individual burden, and ceases killing incentive or the entrepreneurial spirit, we must also have to keep each and every dream alive.
Perhaps the true purpose of our lives is the realization of dreams, and a willingness to finally cooperate, to actually maximize our chances of doing just that.
Dreams are hardly ever about money! Ditto real happiness!
Rhrosty.

David G

Your preference for a world without capitalism befits the concept of the new soviet man - a man that has cast off personal needs for the classless good. A China and Russia returned to full selfless Communism would surely be full of bliss.

But for you I dedicate this short video by the new US Ambassador to Australia and his husband http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/18/meet-john-berry-us-ambassador-australia

The US Ambassador John Berry and his husband are asking Australians where in Australia they should visit. Do you have some suggestions?

When they ask Tony they may stretch Tony's limited tolerance. Tony having just confirmed his opposition to same sex marriage and all.

Oh the ironies...:)

Happy Viewing

Pete

Rhosty, if capitalism in the English speaking world is so bad, why is it that every economic migrant is doing their utmost to head for Canada, Britain, Australia, the USA, and New Zealand? The rule of thumb for every immigrant is, "head for where the locals speak English"

Now, I am very proud that so many people admire our successful culture, I just wish they would stay in their own countries and copy us instead of thinking that the English speaking world can carry them forever.

Your economics are out of date. Traditionally, societies resembled a pyramid with the patricians on the top and the mass of the people on the bottom. But in the modern English speaking world, the shape of society is more of an egg, with more patricians on top, less people on the bottom, and the mass of the people doing OK in the middle.

I find it amusing that so many trendies on OLO either say that our society is bad because there are so many poor people, while at the same time saying that we are a rich society full of "greedy, selfish working class people" Please make up your mind. We can't be both.

The primary reason for poverty in Australia is because we keep importing it. The unemployment rate for Muslims is a scandal, while Pacific Islanders, aborigines and African blacks are similarly afflicted. It you want to do something about poverty, support Pauline Hanson.

The posters here who regularly gloat that capitalism 'defeated' communism are living a fairytale. So too, is the smug nya-nya-nyaaa bragging that everything is all happy and contented in capitalism land. If you can find that missing $30 trillion dollars that our perfectly functioning and victorious capitalist system misplaced sometime over the last 5 years, I might be willing to listen to your cockeyed neo-liberal whackery.

In the real world, the fate of any country that follows either a communist or capitalist system to an extreme is never a pleasant one.

When an economic system creates a massive class of powerless, alienated, poverty stricken people and a tiny bunch of fabulously wealthy people constantly having to guard their wealth and power, the system has to change. So too, when any economic system can only survive through endless war without and intensive domestic surveillance within, its condition is terminal.

this site and its associated links provides heaps of information in support of Ken's completely obvious thesis.
http://www.tomdispatch.com

In the history of the human race, certain beliefs have become famous for revealing the depths of ignorance and intellectual bankruptcy within certain members of the human species, and the need for such people to believe in absolutes which are close to insanity

1. The world was created in seven days.
2. The earth is flat.
3. The earth is the centre of the universe.
4. Killarney's statement that Capitalism did not beat Socialism.

It is just amazing how some people have such a compulsive need to believe in utopian theories that they are prepared to ignore self evident reality and claim that black is white. That most socialist states were in fact giant prison camps means nothing to Killarny. That the two remaining socialist states, Cuba and North Korea are two of the poorest nations on Earth and are giant prison camps means nothing to Killarney. The world's premier Socialist countries, Russia and China, can ruefully admit that state ownership of the means of production was an economic catastrophe and then begin adopting free market economies, and that means nothing to Killarney. That the Berlin Wall, that shining symbol of Socialist oppression of its own people collapsed, and free Eastern Europe who could not wait to embrace free market capitalism, means nothing to Killarney.

No what matters to Killarney is utopian theory which just can not ever be wrong. Killarney wants to save the world, and since capitalism has not saved the world, then socialism must have been the answer. Another five year plan, or two, or three, would have done the trick. We would have created a world with no war, no crime, and no poverty. All you have to do is put on your ideological blinkers and refuse to look at the inconvenient facts, and keep dreaming the impossible dream. If you wish for something really hard, it will come true.

Meantime, all you can do is to keep looking for flaws in a successful economic system to "prove" that your demonstrably failed system was right.