I largely agree with this Paul, although I would argue communism has never been practised in it's purest form as the so-called communist countries were actually brutal dictatorships (and in the case of China still are - it's just the PR is better these days). You can bet Marx and Engels didn't have what Stalin and Mao did in mind when they wrote the Communist manifesto.

Also, I don't think we're looking at a bipolar world, but a multipolar one; the old US-Russian axis has been unsettled by the arrival of China and the far east economies on the world stage as major players. This might have some positive outcomes in the terms of it's never good to have one dominant nation in any world order, but I suspect this will be tempered by the fact that the world's population are fast becoming consumers rather than citizens; it's this issue that will ultimately affect the living conditions of our fellow human beings.

Until we find a working alternative to unregulated capitalism, we could be in trouble.