Capitalism - Good or bad ?

[coalition_unwilling]

135. OK, I'm not an expert here and I don't want to propound as

fact what is merely my opinion based on general reading and certainly not on systematic in-depth study.

That said, I would argue that the pre-Columbian societies were 'communist' (in the sense that the means of production was publicly owned, if 'owned' is the proper term. Maybe better to say 'publicly controlled.')

That is the fundamental criterion by which one distinguishes capitalism from communism: who controls the means of production?

Some pre-Columbian cultures may have practiced slavery, although I'm not sure the term means the same thing there as it would in, say, our ante-bellum South. Even so, it's a jump from that to saying those cultures were 'slave cultures.'

If I'm wrong about this, it is only because I have not studied the matter in depth. I will willingly defer and adopt my opinion to those with more expertise in pre-Columbian history.