Well, RL, you are right that this thread has really become pointless. It started out asking a generally-rhetorical question about a possible solution to what I perceive as the biggest problem with the status quo. But it has taken many twists and turns and has now devolved into nit-picking minutia and nuts and bolts details, name-calling, and accusations, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's all probably moot anyway, since the edifice of that system that you consider to be the best possible solution that we've come up with so far is on the verge of collapse due to the prevalence of very greed and selfishness at the top that I am trying to point out. Whatever we say here will not change anything. The greed faction at the very top of the pyramid has such a stranglehold on the system and process, and on the hearts and minds of those who create, implement, and work within it's policies, that any change from within the system is extremely unlikely. The Beast is entrenched and will give no ground to anyone.

Meanwhile, the rich will get richer, the middle class will stagnate at best, and poverty will continue to increase. You say the status quo provides the best standard of living for the most people in the most efficient manner. For that minority at the top, yes, this is certainly true. The wealthiest people are doing extremely well because they can afford to buy the legislators that happily invoke the policies that benefit them. But the shrinking middle-class is fighting and scratching for everything they have, and many of them have fallen into poverty at the same time corporate profits are at record highs. And the gulf will continue to widen, the rich will continue to hoard all the wealth they can snatch, and the middle-class will continue to fall into poverty, until we are but a third-world banana republic ruled by a tiny elite who holds all the wealth. Of course, the whole system will probably collapse long before we actually reach that point.

The inevitable collapse will be a great equalizer as many who now consider themselves wealthy will suddenly find their paper portfolios wiped out and their pensions gone. I imagine some will be jumping out of windows because they won't be able to bear the burdens of poverty. When the entitlement programs can no longer pay out their promises there will be civil unrest. When the food distribution channels break down there will be hunger and starvation as the veneer of civilization peels away and the cities and suburbs sink into dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest mayhem.

It's not a pretty picture but it's what's in store for us as a result of the extreme greed and lust for power of a few evil people. Western civilization will thus be brought down because those who sought to hoard all the wealth and power to themselves refused to consider the greater good for the greatest number of people.

And though an unthinkable number of unnecessary deaths is tragic, this collapse will be the best thing that ever happened, because a corrupt and inequitable system rooted in greed, economic subjugation, and destruction will finally have reduced itself to rubble. Those who survive it will be able to start anew and hopefully build the foundation for a future of peace and true prosperity for all.