Capitalism has proved to be a complete FAILURE, how can we regroup and ensure a prosperous life for all?

[Lillian]

We still have the number one economy in the world you bonehead. Don't talk or write anything else. It will only make you look dumber than you already are.

[Adam]

If socialism is such a success why is the european economy on its knees?

[eir]

why must the government ensure a prosperous life for all? that is not government's purpose.

[mustagme]

How has capitalism failed? Here we are, over 200 years later still thriving. It is this latest experiment into socialism, starting 2006, that our problems began. The DOW tanked, unemployment rose, and with added government regulation, the cost of everything rose. We need to get back to conservatism and a free market concept. The free market can not be wrong.

[Tom W]

Capitalism has not been a failure. It's the people abuse of it that has failed.

Capitalism does not mean that people are to spend more than what they make, max out credit cards and get loans they can't pay.

[garyb1616]

Yes Cuba is thriving...... maybe don't skip class next time

[dnafairy]

Meanwhile in economically failing Venezuela...

[linlyons]

<<a prosperous life for all?>>

make sure the republicans don't get back in control.
however, capitalism is not a failure.
it is, in fact, a spectacular success.
it's not perfect, just as no system is perfect.
but when you compare what's happened in the US compared to most of the world (up until 20-30 years ago) capitalism pushed the US ahead of everyone.

want more proof? China.
BUT, don't confuse the governmental system (totalitarianism) with the economic system (capitalism as of today) and it's pretty obvious, with something like 10% annual growth, that capitalism works best.

[Near]

Capitalism is NOT a failure, and has proven itself over and over again that it works if people actually tried to learn from past mistakes.

[justgoodfolk]

Yes indeed.

The Crash of 2008 has left the high priests of the Cult of Free Enterprise with a great deal of egg on their faces. The same politicians, businessmen, professional economists and media commentators who insisted ad nauseam that all economic problems were best left to the market, who denounced every social program as a drain on the national budget, pleaded, amidst the backdrop of failing banks, for gargantuan government bailouts to prop up their corrupt and crisis-ridden institutions. The advocates of private property and economic individualism had no compunction about placing the collective assets of the American people at the disposal of the banks. It was widely noted that the US government offered socialism for the rich, while insisting on capitalism for everyone else. Of course, government policy had nothing to do with socialism. All of the measures taken were aimed at securing the interests of the most powerful sections of the financial elite. But the massive state intervention in the economy has dealt a staggering blow to the intellectual legitimacy and prestige of capitalist ideology. This, in turn, clears the path for a resurgence of socialism and Marxism.
Every historical crisis compels the major classes to adopt an independent standpoint and advance, with greater or lesser clarity, a class solution. The initial calls for national unity and common sacrifice will rapidly dissolve into mutual recriminations, mounting hostility and open conflict. It is not possible to chart in advance the precise timetable by which this process will unfold. Several years elapsed before the collapse of 1929 was answered by a movement of the working class. But that movement came, first in the form of the bonus marches of 1932 demanding unemployment relief, then in 1934 in the outbreak of insurrectionary strikes in Minneapolis, Toledo, and San Francisco. This was followed by the formation of the CIO in 1935 and the eruption of sit-down strikes 1936-37.
There are many reasons to believe that the crisis this time will unfold more rapidly. First, even before the crisis had begun the American working class had experienced a protracted stagnation and decay in its living standards. The last 35 years have been characterized objectively be increasing exploitation. Moreover, for all the bluster and arrogance of the ruling elite, the position of American capitalism is in an historic sense far worse than it was in the early 1930s. There was a certain historical confidence that underlay Roosevelt’s assertion that there “was nothing to fear but fear itself.” As Trotsky said so well, “America’s wealth permits Roosevelt his experiments.” The situation today is vastly different. The trajectory of American capitalism, on a downward slope for decades, is now falling off a cliff.
The objective crisis of American capitalism has far-reaching implications for the development of the social consciousness and political orientation of the working class. In the final analysis, the great problem of the development of socialist consciousness in America, even in periods of industrial militancy and violent class struggle, reflected the power and economically privileged position of American capitalism. This objective foundation of “American Exceptionalism”—the peculiar resistance of American capitalism to the challenge of socialism—belongs to the past. As history has so often shown, the intersection of global decline and economic crisis is a trigger for revolution.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan200...-j13.shtml
While Keynesian measures provide no economic antidote to the breakdown of the capitalist economy, they do perform an important political function for the ruling class. Roosevelt's New Deal did nothing to end the crisis of the 1930s, but it did help create the illusion that a solution was possible and thereby performed an invaluable service in blocking the development of a socialist perspective in the working class.
As world capitalism enters its most serious crisis since the breakdown of the 1930s, and the ruling classes draw on their own experiences, so the working class must assimilate the lessons of history. The only way of preventing a repeat of the experiences of the Great Depression, which culminated in the deaths of millions in World War II and the use of nuclear weapons, is the overthrow of the historically-outmoded profit system. The year 2008 marks a milestone in the disintegration of world capitalism; 2009 must become the starting point for a resurgence of the struggle for international socialism by the world working class
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan200...-j02.shtml