For one thing, Baldy, I'm not going to get into it with you yet again about the market solving global warming or just about every other conceivable problem in today's world, because you already know how I feel about so many people's love affair with the concept of a money-oriented system putting a price tag on needs and wants in a post-industrial society where true scarcity need not exist.

That being said, you also know I find your idea of a gradual, natural, and 'non-forced' transformation of capitalism into a resource-based economy (the dream of Marx and Engels in their conceptualization of socialism/communism) to be intriguing, and well worth research and analysis. You have certainly noticed that new technologies are erasing scarcity in a true sense, especially digital technology. In fact, those of us in the publishing industry are currently struggling with ways to keep people paying for digital information they no longer have to for as long as capitalism continues to exist (e-mail if you would like more details about how this is playing out). As production becomes more and more advanced and efficient, the concept of the market--i.e., a barter system--is becoming more and more obsolete. However, it is true that the market system allowed for the Industrial Revolution to happen in the first place, so it was indeed a progressive system when it was established, and for at least a century afterwards.

The reason "communism" failed in the former Soviet Union was because it was a revolution that happened in an isolated nation that was still steeped in rural feudal conditions, and did not have the industrial capability to create a classless society with a resource-based economy; at least not without aid from the greater global community. Moreover, the expected assistance the revolutionaries hoped for from workers across the globe didn't happen, as they were not psychologically ready for a revolution despite being materially capable (the opposite was the case for the Soviets). As a result, the Leninist vanguards inevitably became a new ruling class, and created a state-controlled economy--i.e., Leninism--rather than the stateless and moneyless society conceived by Marx and Engels, because it was the best they could create under those backwards material conditions. A similar state of affairs affects Third World nations of today.

I have no problem with working towards forcing a revolution within the context of the legal system--which Article V of the U.S. Constitution allows for--if all the conditions are correct for it. That includes both material and psychological conditions, which is why the American Revolution of 1776 that replaced feudalism as the dominant global system with the more advanced system of capitalism was successful.

I understand that many people, like Ethan, believe liberal capitalism (which has also been incorrectly referred to as "socialism" in the past) is the best we can hope for in the foreseeable future. And I will say that I feel that the liberal type of capitalism, similar to that established in certain European states, is a much better alternative than the near-fully unregulated form that so many American pundits and intellectuals are pining for. Nevertheless, I do not place limits on hope for change, and with modern industry, the people could collectively establish a classless, stateless, resource-based economy virtually overnight if the right psychological conditions were established (e.g., en masse class consciousness established throughout the working class; the class-wide abandonment of learned hopelessness; and the establishment of a temporary third political party and accompanying labor unions that were run by and for workers, something the Democratic Party doesn't represent any more than the Republicans do).

Finally, I would say a combination of progressive and conservative ideals aren't unusual in many people. Progressives ordinarily eschew radical ideas, and stick to causes that are politically "safe" in the eyes of their mainstream contemporaries. Most truly revolutionary ideas must go through their "radical" phase first, and after the passage of time, they eventually make their way into mainstream progressive acceptance. Nearly all progressive ideals followed by the mainstream movement today were radical and controversial when first introduced into the cultural mindscape, something that most modern progressives like to ignore or "forget". Note how Thomas Payne's formerly radical ideas about black people and women being of inherent equal worth to white men was met by the consensus during the late 18th century when he discussed them in his classic book Common Sense. That is the book where he famously concluded, "Time wins more converts than reason."