There have been many theories and ideas in the history of mankind that have shaped our history and led us to where we are now. The one theory that I believe that has had the most impact on mankind is Capitalism. Capitalism is the socioeconomic theory that has informed and shaped human history for well over the past three hundred years. Started as a professor's insight in Scotland, its widespread adoption throughout the Continent has lead to an explosion of changes that upended the world and is still causing it profound disturbances or advantages depending on how you look at it.

Based on the idea that the social good is best served by private pursuits (or so we were taught), it is almost Taoist in its simplicity and no less mystifying to some economists honest enough to admit their befuddlement. In our day, it has become just about the only way an average man can live, and even some rather morally extraordinary souls cannot remain untouched by it, whether compelled to work for wage-slavery or benefit themselves from the products of wage-slavery.

But what is one to do? There seems no other way to best organize society and its members. Communist China, that great experiment in social engineering, has veered between rigid state planning to the loosest of state controls, and it can report egalitarian poverty and famine for all as well as unequal access to wealth and security.

So it's all well and good to criticize the failings of capitalism, but perhaps no system can succeed completely. At any rate, it does appear that capitalism, to borrow Winston Churchill's comment on democracy, is "terrible but the best we've got."

However, one is usually more likely to hit the bull's eye by aiming for it, and part of trying to improve human civilization increasingly involves the recognition that capitalism is not the end-all and be-all of human progress and development. It has brought awesome wonders, even as Rome in her day was both fearsome and inspiring, but it too shall pass as human beings continue to grow as a race and learn to better and better manage their relations both between themselves and within themselves.

In the 21st century no can really say true capitalism or communism exist, most of the world is now a "Mixed Economy" - a mixture of Public and Private Interest shaping and guiding the progress of human history. Many theories have come and gone some may stay till the end of time while other may constantly change and adapt to our changing environment. Seeing how lately a lot of attention is being given the well being of our planet we might just see some changes come about that may better our ways of living.