I think a lot of people here don't actually understand anything about Marx and... to clear up some mistakes: the socialist society Marx envisioned ever been implemented or achieved - the USSR, North Korea and China (if the latter two can even count as 'communist') differ hugely from the socialism Marx spoke of. For Marx, the socialist society would sort of evolve from capitalism into socialism - but you HAD to have capitalism first as capitalism developed the means of production. In regards to capitalism... Marx noted that capitalism had many good points (it developed the means of production, allowed for wealth creation, etc.) - but he was not blind to its overwhelmingly negative qualities. Capitalism is one of the most bloody, oppressive, and totalizing systems world has ever known. You think of Nazi Germany or Stalin - try sweat shops in India or Pakistan or China (all outsources of capital). Or we could rewind time and look at (early liberal) capitalism at the beginning of the 20th century... or in the 19th century... what we would see is poverty, vast economic and social inequality, world wars, premature deaths, malnutrition, child labour... the capitalism we in the Western world enjoy today was built upon "blood and tears" and under capitalist rule, the rich will continue to exploit us until the day we die, and then they will exploit our children, and then our children's children