Does anybody here have an interest in macroeconomics?

[ScottK]

Yes, but that's all we've had -- just like we've only had a forced, coerced capitalism.  

There's no such thing as a forced capitalism.  Our system is in no way capitalism, and we've never really seen capitalism.  Our system of government is completely captured ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture ) by large corporations.

Capitalism is about continuously building the better mousetrap, and those who can't build the better mousetrap are taken out.  It's creative destruction with competition between small companies.

The elephant in the room so to speak is free energy.  The large energy interests have taken out everything that could have eliminated the need for fossil fuels as an energy source, and protected their monopolies as a result.  Monopolies are not capitalism.  (Try powering your house with solar energy, and you'll realize they allowed that because it's not a replacement)

Is the definition of capitalism taught with a Marxist/Leninist slant now?

I'm sympathetic to arguments that we've never had a real capitalist system, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a vision of ideal capitalism I find appealing.  Since capitalism is based upon inequality and power differentials by definition, I have a hard time understanding the appeal.  I'm an ex-hard-right-libertarian, I'm reasonably versed in Friedman, Hayek, Von Mises, Rothbard, etc. and I understand the planning problems that socialism has, but that always seemed to me to be beside the point.

I'm looking forward to a new century where we can toss out outmoded 19th century Marxist old ideas about what's possible and start thinking freshly.  Unionizing factory workers is the past.  Look at how the coordination of the internet would make certain types of planning and economic cooperation much more likely.  I mean, crowdfunding is essentially socialist finance, using the network effect to raise capital instead of promising a return on investment.

Socialism and communism and their epic failures are solely about the corruption of "who controls the money".

Same with Capitalism and its morphing into being captured.

I would argue that any system would work decently if you had honest people at the top.  Of course, we now have highly dishonest people at the top, so we shouldn't be surprised when the systems fail.

I would considering crowdfunding to be a flattening of the capital raising process - cutting out the middlemen, and removing layers of corruption.  It's the people determining what ventures should be financed, rather than a fund manager managing other people's money.  Effective capitalism is all about honesty..

That said, we need capitalism now because we need fast innovation.  The structure of our economy is currently aligned with 4th Density NEGATIVE principles, and to break out of this, we will need technologies that remove us from centralized systems quickly (the centralized systems will fall apart quickly when things start breaking).