If this article is supposed to stress the contradictions of capitalism yet its progress to an ever better world, it is a mediocre attempt. Quoting Marx and Engels is meant to support the bourgeoisie's violence, not to condemn it. Thus when the author speaks about how progress has come at a cost, he minimises the scope and depth of that cost. He could have added that the existing system with a cost is better than any alternative.
The author has ignored too many negative effects from waste to exploitation, from persisting poverty to wars and proxy-wars, to creating the conditions of more wars, from stress, depression, precarity to insecurity, inequality, and stagnating wages, from monopolies to corruption, from the rise of neo-fascists, nationalism, xenophobia, racism and hate crimes, building more borders to persisting slums, oppression of women, child labour and human trafficking, from proliferation of narcissism and indifference to commodification of everything, normalising pornographic violence and symbolic forms of violence ...
11 Criticisms of Capitalism
1. Capitalist class relations perpetuate eliminable forms of human suffering.
2. Capitalism blocks the universalisation of conditions for expansive human flourishing.
3. Capitalism perpetuates eliminable deficits in individual freedoms and autonomy.
4. Capitalism violates liberal egalitarian principles of social justice.
5. Capitalism is inefficient in certain crucial aspects. [generates a huge amount of waste, e.g. millions of unsold products, and manufactures "needs".]
6. Capitalism has a systematic bias towards consumerism.
7. Capitalism is environmentally destructive.
8. Capitalist commodification threatens important broadly held values.
9. Capitalism, in a world of nation states, fuels militarism and imperialism.
10. Capitalism corrodes community. [and undermines solidarity]
11. Capitalism limits democracy.
—Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias, Verso 2010, p. 37
The author has ignored too many negative effects from waste to exploitation, from persisting poverty to wars and proxy-wars, to creating the conditions of more wars, from stress, depression, precarity to insecurity, inequality, and stagnating wages, from monopolies to corruption, from the rise of neo-fascists, nationalism, xenophobia, racism and hate crimes, building more borders to persisting slums, oppression of women, child labour and human trafficking, from proliferation of narcissism and indifference to commodification of everything, normalising pornographic violence and symbolic forms of violence ...
11 Criticisms of Capitalism
1. Capitalist class relations perpetuate eliminable forms of human suffering.
2. Capitalism blocks the universalisation of conditions for expansive human flourishing.
3. Capitalism perpetuates eliminable deficits in individual freedoms and autonomy.
4. Capitalism violates liberal egalitarian principles of social justice.
5. Capitalism is inefficient in certain crucial aspects. [generates a huge amount of waste, e.g. millions of unsold products, and manufactures "needs".]
6. Capitalism has a systematic bias towards consumerism.
7. Capitalism is environmentally destructive.
8. Capitalist commodification threatens important broadly held values.
9. Capitalism, in a world of nation states, fuels militarism and imperialism.
10. Capitalism corrodes community. [and undermines solidarity]
11. Capitalism limits democracy.
—Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias, Verso 2010, p. 37