The major strength of Capitalism has to do with the fact that it hinges upon the most basic human instincts: self interest; self promotion; putting oneself before others and this basic structure, framed within the appropriate socio-political contest of legality and respect of the rules, becomes a powerful way this self-interest ends up creating "added value" for society at large.

While the success of capitalism is based on this basic human instinct of self-promotion, the line dividing self-promotion from prevarication is thin. Capitalism ends up fostering success for those people who have a tendency to prevaricate and impose their self-interest: an ability that served us well as a specie when we were competing for food and resources in the wild but that could have catastrophic consequences now, given the level of complexity and interconnectedness of our societies.

The second pro would be Capitalism's flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances of society. By creating added value Capitalism has been successful at providing for society's basic needs for food, shelter etc. The resolution of these basic needs in turn, has created a society that expresses now different values and needs to which the structure of Capitalism is quick to respond, thus showing a great degree of self-regulation.

In its current incarnation, capitalism is strictly linked to the environmentally unsustainable concept of "Constant growth". Most firms' chief goal is to perform better than previous year thus creating a situation where capitalism is no longer responding to the satisfaction of "real" needs but is actually creating new, more superficial ones: things are now created/invented not because they are "needed" but only because so they can be sold. This growth for the sake of growth is tipping the ecological balance of our planet.