It depends on what you mean by work. Fulfilling human potentialities, regardless of circumstance, certainly no.

Capitalism is  like a virus constantly mutating.  Instead of conceiving an ideal social system and then trying to find ways to move towards it, why not simply working at mutating the most important negative aspects of the current system and keep doing this and so constantly working towards sociallly good mutations.  This strategy just need a social concensus of some important feasable changes instead of having to design a whole idealogical framework.

@ Louis, a whole ideological framework can be designed but it does not have to be implemented all of it, at least have it done as a target and , step by step adjust areas of priority without creating turmoil or ... cracks into the ground .

Adrian,  

The real challenge is not to create the concept of another better type of society but to understand this one and to see how it can be changed.  I am very much in tuned with tthis talk: ''The Task of Political Theory''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYhljV2sVsY

by Roberto Mangabeira Unger.

The reason I think the focus should be on understanding first the situation we are in is that, whatever better system someone will present, those in favor of the statu quo will scare people that even attempting to change the system in that direction will make the current system to collapse.  Only those that build a credibility into really understanding the current system can be thrusted for leadership.

Though my focus of study is not economics, were one to broaden ones view of entanglement to include more dynamic systems like economy, I believe we could show that our current understanding of exchange, or economy is near sighted. And, that capital markets themselves do not contribute to as much as they limit "exchange;" thus existing to be one source of global economic contraction. This is not an expert opinion, it is my sense. Thank you for such a thought provoking question regarding an issue of grave concern for all.

Louis Brassard, LIFE , among many other things, is understanding, learning, and change bit by bit, adaptation. Slowly, sure we can have a better type of society constructed with the brings and foundations of the past.

You right, the status quo is in the hands and in the pockets of the wealthy. The wealthy will eventually have to understand that their own wealth is at stake, since the entire civilization will collapse if they do not accept change, therefore their "families" will become the owners of just about nothing, if the families will still exist.

As Mark B Allan just said referring to economic contraction, I ask him if he refers to that as also CONCENTRATION of wealth ? Or diminishing the development ? I see it more as a "super accumulation", of wealth by some entities, a process that I am not sure as of yet if it is normal.

Such concentration of "energy" will eventually "explode", so here I see the harm of concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. Here, we come close to the international armed conflicts, tensions, fear, lack of trust in state and governments, etc ...

 Adrian,

Right now 67 persons own as much as the poorest half of the world population and the trend of concentration is accelerating.  The polution of air, ocean, rivers, lakes , the burning of the last great forest, and we entering a period of climate change and life mass extinction and the world population is exploding.  This is just a few of our challenges.  We have all the science, intelligence and technologies that we need to face all these challenges and the future ones but we do not have an collective political organ that can coordinate our will to face them.  Right now the only will we have is the auto-pilot of the financial system which is totally disconnected with all these problems.  

The entire business up to the  corporate level ,the contribution of capitalism can not be under estimated.,as it has given the planet economic for entrepreneur as the decision & control of Finance rest with the entrepreneur to take a right type of decision at the right time. With this ,the growth & development corporate sector with all the level of expansion is due to the the theory of capitalism. .

Socialism  is for the overall good for the community & the system takes care of down trodden section of the community of the society .For the development of the socialistic pattern for the society the capital fund is required for which public community & government agency are performing their part to complete the project but it has been also observed that due to the paper flow & the fund problem the project gets delayed  so that the aim of project is not timely served .

Socialism is certainly a good practice but interference & power politics should not come in a the way of the development program .

This is only my personal opinion 

I guess my point is that in my view, and my view only; capitalism does not work.  And yet I beg to be more specific and say that capital markets themselves are the culprit, collapsing economies.  Yes, wealth accumulation could be seen as one problem with capital market function.

A very elegant solution to global economic woes might then be to merely legislate away the corporate form of conduction business.   However, again I say I am not an economist.  My focus is elsewhere.  However, I believe this issue to be of vital importance. 

Here we have to consider the basic definitions of life, happiness , system and their relations.

life of any creature requires independent behaviour in its growth. Even happiness generated by sharing individual powers is also its own independent behaviour. So freedom is first and for most requirement of individual .

Integral of individual behaviour is applicable to system.As the communication increases the the efficiency of individuals influence over the system will increase. Thus ultimate system in the course of change with time requires freedom with limited restrictions.

Thus capitalism works but always socialism will be an obstruction for its growth.Since capitalism is potential of limited people . after a critical limit it will not be accepted by large groups. the critical limit can be found as the total potential of capitalists and total potential of socialists. Generally socialists potential will be more since its again dependent on individuals psychology which is related to groups behaviour.