Humans succeed because they specialize. i.e. some people learn to make clothing well, others make stone tools well. There has to be a way to exchange the fruits of labour AND compensate people who are have a rare skill or use it more productively. Without the latter there is no incentive for people to produce more or get better.
I'm going to break in and make some points. I think specialization isn't a necessary factor for human's success. It actually happened at the dawn of written history but ok. Agree that a method of exchange is required, and compensation or incentive for performance, ie. meritocracy.
Some small societies have created cults/religion that convince people to share without special compensation but these societies are not sustainable because some people will invariably break free of the brain washing if they realize that the brainwashing is used to exploit them. In other societies an appeal to the "greater good" can work if the society is homogeneous.
I'm intrigued by this cult, and especially in the escapees that broke free from the brainwashing. What is that example ?
In heterogeneous, societies differences in groups will lead to resentments and a feeling that the "other" is not doing their share. Capitalism, like democracy, is not perfect but it is vastly superior to all others in terms of its ability to leverage human specialization for the greater good.
We don't have capitalism any more than we have socialism, we have a negotiated hybrid.
As a thought exercise to evaluate alternatives to capitalism consider how their are likely to perform on these points:
1) Respect an individual's autonomy - i.e. the ability to make their own choices.
2) Reward rare skills and/or better productivity;
3) Dealing with freeloaders;
Excellent discussion points and I think any economy has to deal with all of these aspects to be successful. I also think, as I said, central planning is out.
I can't think of any system that can best capitalism with the caveat that capitalism depends on a system of rules and a bad set of rules can undermine the value of capitalism.
Well... you're failing to imagine the future but that's ok. It's difficult to do so.
I see such ops as simply exercises where a writer takes their preexisting ideology and uses "climate change" as an excuse to push it. You could cross out "climate change" and insert "overpopulation" and the article would not change. So this op is not about climate change - change is just a means to an end. It is about capitalism.
I don't think you can blame overpopulation on capitalism anywhere as easily.
Once again, these are the questions - let's see if we can answer them.
1. Accepting that wholesale change is needed, can it be done within a democratic framework ? Can it be done in a global context ? Can it be done ?
2. Accepting that wholesale change is needed, what does the new system look like ?