Well I think everyone fundamentally agree that communism is hard to implement, due to shortcomings of the human nature.... But that's not what this discussion was about!

But in response to Crocodile's original comment, The one reason that makes it interesting to reconsider the future of capitalism / consumerism is that so much has changed since the major political philosophies were constructed, in the 19th century.

For example; Marx said that working class revolutions were inevitable, etc etc... Yet not that many have actually happened. Social democracy was supposed to lead to Communism; that hasn't happened anywhere.

Other political thinkers were writing that Capitalism is so clever and self-correcting and could literally never go very far wrong... ("the invisible hand" etc) Yet it's pretty much destroying the planet at a fast pace.. and the world is polarising between West and anti-west sympathies: something that none of the major political thinkers saw coming. So that line of thinking did not hold up very well either.

JS Mill, Marx, Hegel, Rawls etc, etc saw the world from the perspective of their own place in time and the state of the world back then.

Plus now everyone is affected by the endless media streams: Is media great or are we getting brainwashed at a level that a 19th century philosopher could never have envisaged. In the 19th century many could not read. Now everyone has a computer and internet. How does this change things.... etc!