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Originally Posted by Charlatan
Capitalism in its purest form has failed... That said, there is nowhere on this planet that capitalism in its pure form is practiced. The free market has long been tempered by governmental reforms.
Marx painted one of the most accurate pictures of what Captialism is (was). What he failed to see was Capitalism's ability to be flexible, to absorb concepts like collective bargaining.
Communism or the dictatorship of the proletariat... the kind of violent revolution Marx predicted would occur will never occur in a society that has brought the kind of general wealth our current systems have brought about. The middle class is too large and will never risk the loss of their material posessions and property.
Captialism contines to be tempered by more progressive policies such as the ones we see in Canada or Scandinavia. Capitalism is still the best system we have despite its myriad problems.
True change and reform takes time and will never come from the barrel of a gun. Rather it comes from dedicated people working within the system to bring about reform. Time and patience is what brings about this sort of change.
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I completely agree with your first point. Marx and Engels both predicted the collapse of capitalism in teh next few years, and they were right... and wrong. True capitalism was destroyed in the revolution of 1914-1918. What Marx did not predict, was the formation of "social capitalism", which has lasted almost 100 years.
When Marx used the term dictatorship, he used it in the classical sense, and not the modern sense (ie he meant an emergency government, not a Stalinist type state).. capitalism has reformed in order to survive, but the fundamental floor of the market system and the profit system has simply proved itself as an incapable system in terms of distributing resources. It will fail because it is and wiull continue to fail the true interests of the people.
As for the middle classes, and the media induced prejudice... you would be surprised, opinion can turn very quickly, the revolution will catch hold of the people very quickly when it happens.