Communism does not reward the hard worker. Enough said, also it denies the dignity of man to his job giving meaning to his life. Paper yes it looks nice in actuality it is wrong. Capitalism is unfair yes but isnt trying to be most equal the great equalizer is death after all.

Ok looks like we agree on what the US is, but not on what it should be... that's ok

As for you eating better, travelling better, dressing better, does not mean you are equal, our health care and education are decent examples of that, the poor get less than they need, the rich get more than they could ever need

Look I'm not sure it would work either particualarly in the long term, but I don't like the fact we can't talk about it in some societies which could benifit from some of it's ideas.. 

China is one of the most capitalistic countries in the world. And look how things are over there.

One big problem with communism is that everyone has to work for the goal, and just as said, the dictator, or any instance holding power, usually like to stick with their power, which leads to capitalistic utopia, although what is funny, is that eventually both should lead to a point where you don't need money.
Other problem is, that human nature has hard time to accept, that everyone doesn't work equally. Everyone should work as they can/want, not as much as someone else.

One good example about communistic utopia, is in Star Trek, where communism works inside democracy, or vice versa.
Where communism works at the moment, is in homes and families. And remember that communism wasn't intented to work nation/worldwide. It was designed for the working class, who lived in communes. Where it of course works perfectly.

One last thing

The show called "Kid Nation" really did it for me in a bad way

The show producers made the kids form a "class" society of "Upper Class", "Merchants", "Cooks", and "Workers"

That to me was f**ked up, they never let them evolve into a natural society on it's own... I wonder why? Would people be shocked at what was formed? Too much like communism? We wont know now!

Peace 

This thread is funny. You can't judge communism based on what a few totalitarian governments have decided to call communism.

If that made sense, I could go rape a hundred babies and call it capitalism and then your argument would be totally fucked, because suddenly capitalism would mean babyraping, right?

Honestly, I've always been content to say that communism is based on a labor theory of value, which I'd bet no one here agrees with. We all believe in marginal utility.

Marx's writings make perfect sense if you grant him that - there's exploitation of the working class by those who own the means of production, etc - and his solutions work, provided value is actually labor-based.

A theory of value based on marginal utility gives us something much closer to capitalism (market failures excepted - they're defined as market failures precisely because they're inferior with respect to marginal utility).

I think most people are missing the major point as to why communism failed, as well as the defining charateristic of communism in general. We are all told early on that communism "is where everyone makes the same", but this is too simplistic.

Capitalism - output is set by the forces of supply and demand - this information is trasmitted to all by the price.  If the price goes up, it signals to all producers to build more, and eventually, more producers to build the product. Just as importantly, if not more so, when the price of a good drops, produce less, and few producers build the product. After all if a product is not selling, this implies that to continue building the product (even if it will maintain employment in the short run) would be a massive waste of always limited resources. You may question whether the motives of the capitalist are selfish, or selfless, but at least they have some guide to go by.

Communism - Pricing model abandonded. Level of output for all goods and services are set by the Central Planning Agency. Without the information transmitted by price, the CPA has to in there best estimate guess how much of a given product needs to be made. Without price, the CPA has to know how the value of one good to "society" compares to another given the limited resources available. This requires complex understandings of how demographics change overtime, in both the long run and day to day. This is why you hear stories of the U.S.S.R overproducing some goods, like cement, while vastly underproducing others. The information required for any CPA to be successful, whether despotic or democratic, could never be available.

 I wish the USA used the Metric system.  It's so much simplier.  I don't understand why anyone bothers with Royal standard or whatever it's called.

 Because its what we learned.  The vast majority of English speaker's use QWERTY, and its designed to make you type on alternating not lines in order to avoid typewriter jams =D.