Capitalism may have it's flaws, but creating innovation is not one of them. The alphabet, for example has spent thousands of years languishing under non-Capitalist systems. Books were availible only to the princes and kings and they wern't very good books at that.The last fifty years of capitalism have brought us word-processing, HTML, Java, paperback books (cheap enough for the masses), spell-checkers, laser printers, even World Wide Web Discussion Boards for Socialists(!)
All of the above were created for profit.
The example of Einstein was brought up. Remember that Einstein (a great man) actually invented nothing. It took the private sector to turn his insights into transistors and power plants. It took the private sector to make these insights useful to humanity.
The public sector, in both the Soviet and American systems, was responsible for the bombs. But what else could be expected from the State?
Of course, many inventions are simply BAD. Poisonous food additives, and brain-destroying television are great examples. But wouldn't it be better to regulate and control these bad sides of Capitalism, rather than give up on the most powerful innovative engine in human history?
One day,we will have ten billion humans to feed. We can all tighten our belts and eat less, perhaps.
Or we can come up with technology to feed ourselves, and feed ourselves well. I'd much rather bet on the innovation spurred by profit than on Fidel Castro. And if feeding the world creates a few billionaires, so be it.
- nat
