Myths of Marxism: is capitalism the most efficient system?

We're often told that capitalism is the most efficient way to run society and the economy. But is that really true?

Stephen from the Sheffield Marxists thinks not...

[barboll]

Socialism is greed, Capitalism is need.

[jordanbarlow]

Not an argument.

The right to property is the most fundamental of all rights, as one can argue that all other rights are derived therein. Self ownership, ownership of your thoughts and actions, and ownership of their applied effects are the reason we ascribe agency to individuals, or condemn them for their moral shortcomings.
If one owns the effects of one’s actions, and one’s actions have the capacity to create goods and services, it follows that one owns the goods and services that one creates.

The truth is, most people have a hideous conception of what a right is, or what a right is for.
Rights are a means to expand the moral framework, particularly to include outsiders that exist as part of separate social structures, so a productive, non-violent interaction is possible.
Since ancient times, many civilisations have formulated declarations in an attempt to manifest social harmony - from The Cylinder of Cyrus to Magna Carta. Our best attempt thus far is undoubtedly English Common Law.
English Common Law states that all individuals possess the infinite set of rights, but removed are the rights that violate those of others. *This results in a set of equal, inalienable rights for all citizens.*

Let us now turn attention to the state.
Many people view the state as a nameless, faceless entity of authority. This is untrue. The state is merely an amalgamation of individuals. *Individuals have a set of equal, inalienable rights.*
So after hurling a host of charges at capitalists for allegedly manifesting inequality, you go on to describe a system where the state wields exculsive property rights over all goods and services in an economy.
A system where individuals literally don't have equal rights. A system where one's rights depend entirely on one's place in the state hierarchy. A system that is not only void of all logical coherency, but is utterly morally bankrupt.
And Marxists have the nerve to claim they are avatars of egalitarianism.
It's completely pathetic.

I don't understand how one can look honestly at the twentieth century and fail to notice the unimaginable horror this ideology has produced.
I'll leave you with a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - a prisoner of the Soviet regime who spent much of his life in their array of concentration camps. He authored The Gulag Archipelago (which is now mandatory reading for Russian schoolchildren).

“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal; and if they are equal, they are not free.”

[Anon]

You, by the looks of things, have comfortable housing, a computer and a web cam who is complaining about capitalism.