> What exactly is the alternative to capitalism?

First, I should state up front, I am not remotely anticapitalist. Quite the opposite. However, as practiced in the US right now, capitalism has become a cancer that is distorting and consuming everything and replacing it with the profit motive. We are all poorer for it in many ways, and growing more so. I even think it's become a serious threat to our freedom and liberty.

I think any pure "-ism" is an undesirable thing. Every approach has a degenerate condition that it will trend toward if there isn't a countervailing force. The alternative to capitalism is to mix in the strengths of the other "-isms" and to stop treating capitalism like a religion.