Hey mil, I agree entirely ... I think :-(

First capitilism is not a democratic system,it is a complete farce.I will only give one classical example,in South Africa this farce named as such,created wealth they these capitilists did it by exploitation,they gained the blacks were losers,can that then be called a democratic and free society most certaintly not

Diocletian:
you remind me of Descartes defense of his famous theorem, “Cogito Ergo Sum.
As I recall, he claimed -roughly- that anyone who understood his theorem would agree with him, and anyone who disagreed would simply be demonstrating they had not the wit to understand it.
In the hard sciences, the true test of understanding is the ability to make accurate predictions.
Quite clearly, no one, socialist communist or capitalist has managed a complete understanding of economics or meteorology as yet.
Your arguments appear to be just as ideologically (and illogically) driven as those of the socialists you decry.
One presumes the ‘300,000’ you refer to would be the aboriginals. I think most anthropologists would agree that, at the time of the British invasion, the blackfellas had a better standard of living than the whitefellas. They certainly worked less hours, and had a better diet.
Most of the subsequent improvements in the S.O.L (at least for the next 5 or so decades) were due more to advances in medical science, than capitalism.
As to your comment:
“No-one can just thoughtlessly and comfortably live at the expense of others.”
In a world where 25-30,000 children die every day from poverty, and where:
“In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%:”
The poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption:
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
These stats (from http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats) make your statement indefensible.
If you intend to argue that one group is not responsible for the other, consider the concept of ‘ecological footprint’.
If everyone in the world enjoyed the same standard of living of average Americans, we would need the resources of 5 planets.
http://www.naturalnews.com/022890.html
We are living "thoughtlessly and comfortably" at the expense of others.

Grim, Descartes was, of course, mistaken in saying "I think, therefore I am," rather than "I think, therefore thinking is." He observed a process, and incorrectly inferred an entity. Many problems have flowed from this error!

The apologists for the capitalist system now in ruins remind me of the apologists for communism prior to its collapse:

Communism works!
It just hasn't been introduced right yet. And if only people would allow communism to work the way Marx intended then it would prove how well it can work.

Substitute capitalism for communism and you have the basis of this article. If only governments would get out of the way and let the market work everything would be all right. What rubbish!
The market doesn't work. It rips. And boy have we seen some ripping over the past 30 years.

shal

I liken this whole brouhaha to a two-edged sword.

Ergo, there is neo-con capitalism and communist capitalism. In my view neither have worked very well.

So why not take the best of both, throw out the tosh and adopt the middle road?

After all, we are all trying to survive together (aren't we) on this 3rd rock from the Sun.