The reality of Capitalism

In these days when the Spanish government bows to Emperor Barack I and his court of EU and IMF bureaucrats, cutting the budget in anything but police and military spending, it's good to know what are these promoting at the expense of the common citizen.

Argentine sociologist, Atilio A. Boron, explains at his blog[es] with facts what is Capitalism. I use his data here with my own comments:

Population: 6.8 billion. Almost 100% live in Capitalist areas (with very few exceptions nowadays). Of which:

• 1 billion (15%) are chronically undernourished
• 2 billion (29%) have no access to medicines
• 884 millions (13%) have no access to edible water
• 924 millions (14%) have no home or live in precarious ones (slums)
• 1.6 billion (24%) have no electricity
• 2.5 billion (37%) have no sanitation
• 774 million adults are illiterate
• 18 millions die (are murdered by the system) every year because of poverty, most of them children under 5.
• 218 million children (5-17 y.o.) work under slavery conditions in dangerous or degrading jobs such as soldiers, prostitutes, servants, agriculture, construction or the textile industry.
• 25% of people have only 0.9% of all wealth, while 10% owns 71%. Data from 2002, when it had worsened in relation to 1998. It's most likely that the gap today is much wider.
• In this 1998-2002 period the wealthiest 10% increased their wealth in 6.7%, fraction that, if distributed, would double the incomes of 70% of people, saving many many lives (and activating the market a lot).
  

He concludes:

After five centuries of existence this is what Capitalism has to offer. What do are we waiting to change the system? If Humankind has a future it will be Socialist. Under Capitalism instead there will be future for nobody, not for the poor and not for the rich. F. Engels' sentence, which is also R. Luxemburg's one: 'Socialism of barbarism' is today more real than ever before. No society can survive when its vital drive is greed and its engine is profit. Sooner or later it causes social disintegration, environmental destruction, political decadence and moral crisis. We are still in time but we cannot wait for too long.