[scandium]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

>Neither does capitalism IMHO, although its had a good run so far<

Sorry, but capitalism is in full swing in nearly every 'western' country on the planet, and it is a complete success. The mark of modernization and success of all developing countries is to adopt a western system of capitalization. It's not a 'political ideology' like communism is. Capitalism is simply free trade that is not interfered with, it was a naturally occuring thing. Each country has their own take on how the government interacts with the economy but in the end the economy controls the country, and the people control the economy.

Capitalism is a complete success, has been instated fully in most parts of the modern world and is basically the only proven workable way to sustain a modern nation. Those who don't accept that get left in the dust. Most countries with capitalism are also democracies but there are exceptions like China.

Well first off, in the grand history of mankind, the history of capitalism is but a dot on the timeline. Within that little dot we've managed to deplete much of the world's non-renewable resources of coal and petroleum and that is leaving its mark on the environment. The extent of that mark is still unknown, while consumption, at least over the short term, will continue to increase. As will the rate of resource depletion and pollution side effects.

There are no shortcomings produced by capitalism, only by the people who control the economy. The people are not forced to any ideology, capitalism means free economy. There is nothing stopping people from inventing new ideas or new ways of reducing environmental impact or whatever. If they DID something like that, they could capitalise on it and expand the economy even further.

This is extremely simplistic and naive. Of course there is nothing stopping people from inventing new ways to reduce environmental impact, and in fact many have been invented already, years and even decades ago. The resistance lies in their adoption by industry, and, to a lesser extent, even consumers. In the first case the resistance is there because existing technologies benefit from things like economies of scale and prior innovation that make them cheaper to use than new technologies that don't have these benefits. For example the automobile, which has been in use for about a century and has gone through constant innovation but remains essentially unchanged - in fact many of todays autos don't get much better milage than the 14 MPG of the original model T. The radically newer designs of electrics and hybrids have been around a while but face resistance from consumers in part from the comparative expense of the newer technology.

In the case of pollution controls they tend to cost money to be implemented and are resisted by industry out of fear that profits will be impacted, and by consumers who fear costs will be passed onto them. Governments are hesitant to force compliance with pollution reducing technology out of legitmate fear that these industries will simply shut down and relocate to places where the pollution is a welcome trade off for the money that will be brought into the region in return. In any case the trade off is the same: pollution in return for higher profits, cost savings, or regional investment.

Capitalism + true democracy is basically the only realistic way to go in the modern world.

Perhaps. It comes at a very high cost over the long-term though, the bill for which we don't know, nor do we know when it will become due.