Dear f/w friends Time, perhaps for a next step in this. My guess might be that few of us see capitalism as *the* last word in social and global management ('That which has a start also has an end' and so on.) I think, that, if we are to have any chance of defining a better system (at least one, practically, that we could get to within our? life-times!), then defining 'where we are now' is one fair place to start. Ok, Ok, I accept that defining tangibles and intangibles is a slippery task. tho' key to that is to try to untangle cause from effects: (Dilbert: "Capitalism; The harder I work, the fatter my boss becomes." - a description of consequences rather than cause - this definition is equally true of other heirarchy-based systems!) Hence I accept, full well, that the operational level of definition that I took from the Oxford Dictionary ("Private ownership of the means of production and their use for private profit' - I paraphrase a bit) is a start only, but this will get us along.) (Consider, for example, the fact that the above has an 'ethical' component behind it - that ownership of anything is realistically possible,which we could challenge, *but* let's leave that to one side for while.) So, the OD definition leads to the start of the following start to a table of possibilities: Economic system Ownership of productive assets Ownership of benefits Capitalism Private Private Communism Public Public (Theoretical?) OK, f/w friends, any others? Hugs john ***********