With the fall of many Communist regimes in Warsaw Pact states during the late 1980's, many people considered that as the death throes of Marxism and Communism as a viable political ideology and economic model. The final deathblow was actually delivered in 1991, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics itself fell apart and the successor states all attempted to move to a free market economic system with a democratic government. Although other socialist states such as China survived the collapse of Communism around the world, they did so only because they adopted economic policies that can be considered capitalist in nature. At present, only North Korea maintained the command economy model based on the theories of Karl Marx and his followers. However, one look at North Korea and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that country is actually in deep trouble.
             By following events in recent history, we could say that Communism as an economic model has failed in achieving its lofty promises of a classless and equal society. But many people are asking, why did it fail? How could such a system seen by many 50 years ago as a better option to a supposedly decadent capitalist system just fall apart like that? Even as late as 20 years ago, it is common to talk of the world as divided between the communists led by the Soviet Union and the capitalists led by the United States. All that is now history but why did Capitalism triumphed over Communism?
             One of the main tenets of Communism is to achieve a society where all could benefit from the society's production of goods and services. There are two main doctrines that espouse Communism: Marxism and Socialism. Marxism is quite similar to Socialism in the sense that it advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods in order to promote social equality. But the main difference between the two is that conte...