The Big Picture - the three isms (Capitalism, Communism, Socialism) arose from the Industrial Revolution replacing feudalism. All three will be replaced by a new ism arising from the Info Revolution.

Russia was the first to fall because of 3rd Wave Info Tech. (Black market Beatles tapes had more impact than Reagan.) The U.S.S.R. never really practiced pure Communism anyway. China tried pure Communism under Mao. It didn't work there either. Britain's experiment with socialism failed also. Capitalism will eventually fail too and be replaced.

In the meantime, none of the three isms works all by itself. You need a three legged stool. A one or two legged stool is not stable and will fall.

Capitalism does promote invention and progress and create great wealth, but there are always greed heads and sociopaths, hucksters and snake oil salesmen and capitalism does not protect the people from them. Unfettered Capitalism gets you sweatshops, child labor, unsafe working conditions, and faulty unsafe products. (Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle on Chicago meat packing industry shows result of pure capitalism. Business had no problem selling people rotten contaminated meat full of worms and maggots and botulism and salmonella.)
Capitalism also does not protect the commons (air, water, soil, nature, wildlife, parks, oceans). Capitalism plunders the commons and externalizes costs to the people while internalizing only the profits. If businesses paid the true cost of their products, there would be no profit.
The other two isms arose as protests to the abuses of pure capitalism. People got tired of being exploited and living in polluted environments.

Communism protects the commoms. Everyone owns everything equally. There is no private property. The wealth is distributed equally. So is power and healthcare and everything else. Problem is it doesn't work. It goes against human nature. All people aren't equal. Some people are smarter, more ambitious, and want more. Some are charismatic leaders. Most follow leaders like sheep. There are the greedheads and sociopaths again. And leaders refuse to step down and be equal.

Socialism protects the people. Everyone has a nice home, good food, free healthcare, and a minimum income. Problem is the tax rate ends up way too high. (The Beatles were paying a 95
ax.) This stifles all ambition and innovation. No one wants to do all the work to provide a new product or service if the government is going to take all his money. It takes away the incentive to work.

So my position is you need to take the best of all three isms and combine them into a hybrid that works. That's the Democrat way. Pure, unfettered, free market, competitive, go for broke, cut throat, red in tooth and claw, screw the other guy, let the buyer beware, rape the environment capitalism just doesn't work in the long run. So you add in just enough socialism to protect the people, so everyone has a minimum quality of life. So no one is chained to a machine in a sweatshop or getting black lung in a mine. So if you fail you don't end up sick, hungry and homeless in an alley. Also not everyone is equal. Some are dumb, lazy, untalented, retarded, disabled. A humane society takes care of the least among them. Add a little communism to protect the commons. The air, water, rivers, oceans, nature, wildlife, wilderness don't belong to us. No one should own them or abuse them for profit at the expense of everyone else. Everyone should have access. Here in CA the entire beach north to south is public property. You can own land and a home that blocks the view from the highway if you want to, but the people own the beach and have to be given access. Otherwise, the wealthiest 1% would buy up this limited resource and deny it to the other 99%.

The Dems are actually moderates. They take what works from all three systems. Each works in moderation. The three isms check and balance each other well. Whereas, Republicans are extremely gung ho for pure free market capitalism in spite of the fact that history has shown repeatedly that it just doesn't work. And for some reason Republicans are terrified of socialism and communism when all they are saying is you got to treat people humanely and protect the things we all share in common.