If “invisible leech” was the best metaphor you could come up with

Well, it seems that the leech WAS very invisible for a LOT of "good communists" long after the gorrila was obvious to everyone else. Still holds for many.

I'm not clear on what your objection is exactly. I'm certainly no fan of unfettered capitalism mainly because it creates as many leeches on society as any socialist system. The only difference is that in capitalism the leeches are found among the families and offspring of the successful capitalists, whereas in socialism they are found among the minority of working class who'd rather game the system than do a fair days work. I personally think that a fair system should provide an absolutely even start in life to every citizen, then beyond providing free healthcare to all (because most often health problems are not the result of bad choices but bad genetics, bad luck or environmental pollution) leave them alone to make the best of their talents, and no passing of advantage on to following generations. It also seems rational to provide some level of insurance against temporary lack of employment simply because that improves worker mobility, which is beneficial in the long term.

It is important to make a distinction between capital markets and markets for goods and services. Capital markets are driven by the desire of money to make money, and they require composite growth for proper functioning. There are in fact other incentives for investment and efficiency than the desire of rich people to get richer without doing constructive work. When you invest in a new roof for your house you do so because you desire to stay dry, not because you are trying to make your money grow. When insulate your house you are trying to cut your energy costs, not to gain wealth based on somebody else's productivity improvements.

Everyone know that the Golden Gate Bridge was one the greatest wastes of money in the history of humanity, since any investment of community funds will inevitably be executed in a inefficient, slovenly fashion. This is the reason why our sewer systems, street lighting systems, highway systems, state universities, national laboratories, etc. are completely non functional and worthless.

You really ought to try activating a couple of extra brain cells rather than just parroting standard economic propaganda. If you did so you would realize an elementary fact: Capital markets require composite growth for proper functioning. If I give you money, which represents purchasing power, and expect you to return a larger amount of purchasing power to me at some later date, then that excess purchasing power has to come from one of two sources:

1. Total economic output increases.
2. I take purchasing power away from somebody else.

No third option exists. I look forward to you explanation of how such a system of investment will work without economic growth.

My belief is that we need a system of public or community investment, which I think can be compatible with markets for goods and services and a large degree of private enterprise. We need to create a society in which the only way to earn the right to consume economic output is by doing constructive work. No one should be able to earn money simply by virtue of the fact that they already have money.

Point taken, I got a little carried away about the "civilizatin will end when a family only can afford one car" mindset.

I do not see capitalism dieing. There is a whole spectrum of capitalists and businesses, some produce services and products that will be very useful in a post peak oil world, some dont, some produce good quality stuff, some dont, some have their environmental influence under control, others dont and some have solid owners and others are deep in debt and can no longer honour their contracts.

The financial crisis seems to be unwinding the contracts that no longer can be fulfilled. There are a lot of promises for future incomes that never will materialise and the ugliest part might be people who wont get the pensions they have paied for since they were malinvested. It sucks to work hard during the prime time of your life and having all that you accompished be sucked up by a Bearnie Madoff, or investments in inefficient buildings and infrastructure or companies who make shitty products.

But on the bright side this is a large batch of creative destruction that strips irresponsibe or dumb leadership of resources that the can be picked up by better run companies, new entrepreneurs and used to implement new ideas.

Unfortunately this process is unfolding in an abrupt way that also destroys businesses that would be viable in a more gradual change. Thus are also good assets destroyed and businesses that should pump out needed services and products for the adaptation to a new set of cercumstances are idle. This process surprised me since I thougt the market part of our global economy would be more agile then it obviously is.

But I can also see that not everything stops and good investments are made and they need to be valued against each other in a way that is far quicker then a political processes and there must be ways for people to invest their surplus money/work/resources in things that will pay off in the future. I work with political solutions but there is no way to get things done in an an efficient way withouth capitalism and the market economy.

Such processes have in earlier times survived hardship including currency failures so why should it stop?

My prediction is that a new generation of captalists will emerge from the ashes in parallell with new investors, both very small and large, who know about asking the right questions. One of the most important parts of this process is keeping old well functioning institutions running and improving on the institutions that are needed for the new situation. And this is a good thing to do regardless of how deep the recession or depression is or how large the emerging economy will be.

The for me scariest scenario would be a political movement in Sweden who would like to scrap our institutions and abandon capitalism, personal ownership and the market parts of our ecnomy for some grand experiment. That could destroy the good things we got and can create. We have recently toyed too much with socialism and it hurt us. I think we can handle the peak oil problems and climate change problems and competition with bidding wars for resources if we keep our toolbox of institutions and capitalism and one of the most important institutions is a functioning democracy.

as they die of starvation? Might be in Africa, could be in the first world, who knows (rhetorical).

It may be true that poorer countries will suffer more, but peak oil is not an insurmountable problem. The waste will be curbed first by simple market mechanisms when the oil price rises again. And as current waste is tremendous, especially in North America and in subsidizing countries, that gives us a really big cushion. Important operations won't suffer for decades after peak oil, which leaves us plenty of time and resources to invest in other energy sources.

In my opinion capitalism (as we know it) is dieing in front of us. [...] Capitalism in a new form, may rise from the ashes of the ruins we stand amongst

That is crazy talk, my friend. And please realize that death of capitalism would represent a much graver threat of global starvation than peak oil ever was.

What's dying now is not capitalism, but corporatism (what capitalism has evolved into in the US primarily, eg. a supposedly voter-selected government which has become captive of large corporations). To observe capitalism operating properly, see most Scandinavian countries. I dare you to call a Dane a communist. You wouldn't survive the encounter. Sweden lately has gone a little wonky, but otherwise the Scandinavians are getting things right. Observe how the Norwegians are handling the discovery of enormous petroleum wealth in their offshore. They've passed laws that say that all excess wealth generated is sequestered into a government-held fund, THEN passed laws stating that the resulting funds must NOT be re-invested locally, because such re-investment would overheat the local economy causing inflation of wages and products, thus killing local entrepreneurs outside of the oil industry (known as the "Dutch disease", see Alberta, Canada.) Interestingly, taxes at all levels in Norway are still high relative to esp. N. America, reflective of the high quality of services (universal health care, free education to any level which a student can qualify for the entrance exams, etc. etc.) the government provides its citizens, and NONE of it paid by the oil revenues collected by the government.

The difference from there to N. America is that the people actually TRUST their governments (for good reason, the governments are trustworthy and democratic). The true test of whether a government is democratic or not, is whether it is worthy of every citizen's trust. As soon as it fails that test, it is no longer democracy.