This is a really uneducated stance to be taking. You state that "anti capitalists don't actually understand capitalism" when in reality you don't understand how socialism works or how capitalism works and you also stated that socialism was realized before capitalism was fully understood but this is completely wrong. Socialism was developed by Marx and Engels after capitalism had already taken root. Lenin then later furthered socialism by recognizing the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism. People have already taken everything you said into account, though Im unsure if you knew this as you haven't read any socialist theory.
I will explain to you the core rule of capitalism, the anarchy of production and the cycle this creates. As you know capitalism has the free market, where small businesses can start and that allows for monopolies to form. This is important, as a company grows bigger and bigger, swallowing up the smaller businesses, competition diminishes.
Free competition, which is necessarily bound up with big industry, assumed the most extreme forms; a multitude of capitalists invaded industry, and, in a short while, more was produced than was needed. The consequence? Commodities could not be sold + economic collapse occurred.
Small businesses begin to appear again, things begin looking up for the economy as commodities begin to sell again but then monopolies begin forming, the cycle restarting.
How can such an economy bring about any meaningful progress when it's constantly collapsing and rebuilding itself? This causes unnecessary suffering especially for the working class who have it the worst during periods of economic collapse, depression, and inflation.
Also a centrally planned economy can and has worked. Socialism has worked. I don't understand what you're talking about with the failure of socialism because you don't understand why or how these nations you speak of collapsed. So I will summarize here.
I won't speak on the other nations as I'm more educated on my own nation, Mongolia and the USSR, but their stories are similar except for Yugoslavia and the african nations. Those nations were never socialist. Socialism isn't just a word you just throw around. At it's core it is a mode of production that needs to be properly built. You can have socialist aspects in culture and society but that's isn't what defines a nation as socialist or not. ("Market Socialism" isn't socialism. Though that's a whole different conversation to be had. )
USSR: The USSR's technical collapse can be traced back to Khruschev's economic reforms. Khruschev was an opportunist and revisionist who most likely was involved in a plot with Beria to murder Stalin, he staged a coup and took over the soviet government and began to implement economic reforms that laid the base work to reintroduce capitalism to the USSR and for the collapse of socialism. So this is not a failure of socialism but rather the work of traitors. During Stalin's era the USSR boosted its production so much so that it became a genuine threat to the USA, why do you think the USA and other capitalist/imperialist nations were threatened by the spread of socialism and the success of the USSR? The USSR then was taken over by Brezhnev, who isn't important as he didn't do anything economically. But the most important is Gorbachev. He was the one to hammer the last nail in the coffin of the USSR by introducing glasnost and perestroika to the country by decentralizing it, allowing foreign companies to enter the USSR market, and his disastrous economic policies then brought about different democratic revolutions across the USSR. A lot of these revolutionary groups have ties back to CIA funded organizations like the Polish Solidarity. So yes America is at fault for a lot of the collapse. They wanted this, they funded revolutionary groups and more. (If you didn't know the USSR was illegally dissolved as 74.6 % of the people voted to keep it in tact! so.)
Mongolia: Mongolia went from a completely feudal, rural, poor 100% peasant work force nation to an industrialized booming economy in 40 years. This is because they were socialist. People went from trying to survive to living in comfortable apartments, homelessness was 0%, literacy went from barely nothing to above 95%. Socialism gave Mongolia the ability to use its own resources. The story is complex here but due to the USSR turning revisionist so did Mongolia. In 1969 they adopted the disastrous economic reforms of Khruschev and Krosgyn and by the late 70s these reforms began to have effects. These effects were the stagnation of the Mongolian economy. The consequences of the stagnation was pushed back by the aid that the USSR was giving Mongolia but when Gorbachev took power he refused to give Mongolia economic aid, stating that the USSR had to take care of itself. This paired with Gorbachev ousting General Secretary Tsedenbal from power (due to Tsedenbal resisting the implementation of perestroika and glasnost in Mongolia) and replacing him with pro Gorbachev Batmonkh, fucked the Mongolian economy up and there were shortages all the time. The government went broke trying to keep the country afloat and had to take out loans from the IMF and World Bank (imperialist tools) and in 1989 the democratic revolution started in Mongolia. This democratic revolution was also backed by the Polish Solodarity so much so the Polish Solodarity helped them write the 1992 constitution of Mongolia. Foreign movement that is funded by the CIA interfering in Mongolia's politics sure sounds like the USA had a part to play here.
"Incentives driving innovation"
I agree with this, incentive does drive innovation but you're incorrect stating that money is the incentive that drives innovation. Yes it can drive innovations but it shouldn't. What should drive innovation and had been driving innovation before capitalism would be the benefit of humanity, the progress of humanity, the advancement of science. For every 1 inventor you list that invents for money I can bring up many more that invented because they wanted to benefit others and advance their respective fields due to their passion. Take for example Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, the Wright Brothers, should I go on?
You state that capitalism has driven the most inventions and that it drives innovation but this is wrong and a misunderstanding.
Capitalism drives innovation in only profitable industries. Take for example the pharmaceutical industry, they only invest in what will be profitable, they are driven by money, not to save the lives of people.
"On the website of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a pharmaceutical giant that made just over £5 billion in profits last year, we find out that “governments [should] commit to a series of guaranteed payments to the company developing the medicine over a period of years once the medicine is made”, regardless of whether the antibiotic is used or not. From the point of view of the pharmaceutical giants, this would certainly be a wonderful business model!
Given that the big pharmaceutical corporations spend the largest share of their profits not actually on research, but rather on buying back their own shares, boosting stock prices, and yielding billions for shareholders and CEOs, the subtext of such suggestions is effectively: finance our decadent lifestyles out of the public purse, or millions will die entirely preventable deaths."
Why capitalism is stunting science
Anthony Oakland, KCL Marxists
Do you want people only helping others not because they want to help others but just to line their wallets? Is this what you want society to be like? So individualistic that people no longer care about others as society becomes more hyper individualized and we only care about money? This system is not beneficial and will ultimately end in the quality of life decreasing as corporations begin to get more and more power, as we are currently seeing in real time. I will bring up the case of the USA. "The USA isn't the best example of capitalism" but it is. This is what capitalism is. A system built on exploiting people and greed.
I will note here that capitalism is progressive, it's more progressive than the feudalist system that came before it. And imperialism is more progressive than capitalism, that is why you see people from nations like Mongolia come to the USA. Both capitalist nations but one is more developed and advanced than the other. Though at a cost, the reason why nations like Mongolia are poor and its people flock to other more developed countries is because these developed countries are exploiting poorer nations for their resources and purposefully stunting their growth and independence so that the wealthy can benefit. So you trying to have a "got you!" moment about immigration of people from poorer nations to richer ones just shot your own argument in the foot.
Capitalism and imperialism are both less progressive and become conservative with the rise of socialism. Socialism is the necessary, undeniable next stage for the world.
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