>>And so the big thing which proved capitalism was better was that it could spend more money on weapons. I'm not really convinced anymore.

>Can you explain what you mean? I don't follow....

In analogy to a game of poker, capitalism didn't prove to be a better player, only that it could throw away more money and stay on its feet. It sounds like it gave up most of its major trump cards - individualism, free enterprise, better life for most of the people, and played the "we'll arm-race you to exhaustion" card.

At what price? The unimaginably huge pile of cash (on both sides) was wasted on arms. And what's the result? Most of the people in the countries in transition are worse off than they were before, and most of the safety nets were dismantled with the old system. And the capitalism has lost competition, so it doesn't feel the urge to play nice with its people. Just watch where this goes. I'm not sure I like the direction toward all-power-to-huge-corporations.