The Equilibrium Of The Short-Sighted

I must preface this discussion with my considerations on the matter of socialism vs. individualism.
On the one hand, I can see the charaterizastion of parasitic as fitting to some who are under welfare or otherwise prefer to leech (called Free riders in sociology circles) rather then produce, as the isolated few toil and sweat, only to have their production taken arbitrarily. Yet, on the other hand, we must realize that frequently in our history, more-so in fact, the elite do not obtain their capital through Randian "noble" activity, but playing sports, arranging mergers, what would be characterized, and perhaps accurately, by the public as "wasted millionares", and that these un-worthy (culturally judged) rich, through nepotism and selfishness would keep many worthy individuals from achieving their potential through inability to recieve comparable education, contacts, and in the American sphere, healthcare. Indeed, going further racially-based nepotism may cause those races to be considered only suitable for the positions they are relegated to, and the poverty I outlined above becomes self-perpetuating.

Given these two extremes, I believe to advocate either purely socialist or purely capitalist economic systems from a position of morality is illogical. Both are equally valid given the characterization one undertakes for the participants, and both are equally vulnerable to excess that could cause irreperable harm to the society that would allow such an activity.
The issue, however, is under what circumstances, ignoring the ethicality of the underlying issue, does each pretain most effectively? Socialism would seem the logical status for countries to ensure sufficent money exists in the lower classes to prevent undue control among the elite, and yet in the late 70s we saw the breakdown of the economic systems that advocated such a pure form. The response was a return to Laisse-faire markets, which coincided with a boom in the economies of many nations. Ultimately though, this falters out, as the late 80s bust shows, and the East Asian financial crisis (in part caused by overly free markets with little or no government controls). Indeed, the continued widing of the rich-poor gap (that is, those who are either extremely poor or extremely rich, with fewer people in between) would seem to indicate another flaw of a purely laisse-faire economy (in addition to extreme violatility from non-rational events destroying predictive abilities in the market).

Given the lowering finaicial prospects of the majority, I would believe in it is inevitable that a less capitalist government is elected in many Western nations, which seems to be, at least nominally, supported by the Congressional elections in which Democrats took a strong majority.

Thus, although each side believes itself morally and functionally ideal, we see both are only good for a period of time, before their flaws begin to do more damage then good. It is, therefore, the counter-balance of the two forces that produces a successful economy, and it is the fundementalist who's equally balanced that keeps it this way.
The rise of neo-conservativism worried me, but the Bush invasion of Iraq seems to have destroyed the mainstream appeal of that ideology, and I do not believe an excessive amount of conservatist ideology will pose a problem to the coming transition to a more socialist economy.