Reply #127: It "inherently kills" huh?

[MellowDem]

Capitalism is an economic system, not something that inherently kills by its very nature. The "business cycle" that Marx was talking about is part of capitalism, but it is not necessarily deadly. And, if well regulated, the business cycle can be kept from having big swings that generate the boom and bust crisis.

As it is, socialism still relies on capitalism as its main economic force. Look at Europe. Capitalism, for all its flaws, also has a lot of upsides to it as well. To say "capitalism inherently kills" is a rather incomplete and innaccurate statement. For many, the upsides of capitalism outweigh the downside. And given that capitalism can be regulated, its not a system that needs to be (or ever will be) thrown out. Some of the staunchest supporters of capitalism today are former communist countries and they were very well versed in Marx. I think Marx had some good ideas about capitalism, but other things he said were pretty wrong or at the very least uninformed and oversimplified. To say that all value of a product is derived from labor is simply untrue and laughable. We know that that is not the case. Supply and demand have a bit to do with it for one thing.

And to completely ignore the upsides of capitalism is rather disingenous, isn't it? After all, the horrible "drive for technological progress" hasn't all been a bad thing? I'm sure you can think of a few other things as well that I wouldn't want the world to lose out on.