Is it not the greatest idea we have ever come up with? Sure there are tons of issues with it but it also converted the planet from tribal warfare to incredible prosperity over the last hundreds of years.

Where "the planet" is only a subset of the planet.

My guess would be that "the planet" would have preferred the tribal warfare way of life... just a hunch.

It was the dominant economic system in place while that happened. I don't think we can say that technological advances were the result of capitalism, necessarily, or that they would not have happened under some other social structure.

Why isn't it great?

Snarky answer: It's only great for those at the top.

I should prefix this by saying

   There are two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about, and the ones that nobody uses.

This applies equally to governments.

The merits of different economic and governmental systems is a little offtopic here, but I'd suggest browsing some wikipedia pages for some alternate opinions:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism#Criticism_of_capitalism

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_th...

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Economics

Etc. This won't really answer your question, but it should start to formulate a few questions in your mind, and by pursuing them, at least lead you to why others criticize capitalism, even if you disagree with them.

Well I know why people don't like it, but look at any socialist economic alternative and you'll find the opposite: better for those at the bottom. It's kind of like having a job that pays you for performance (sales, executive, etc) vs those that pay straight salary.

I'd rather err on the upside.

What excites me, as an American, is seeing the large amount of immigrant entrepreneurs making major bank...though I'm not in their ranks yet (major bank), I do like seeing it.

But (in anarchist communism at least), there is no "at the top" or "at the bottom". "Better for those at the bottom" is "better for everyone".