Capitalism that you mention that could work was the capitalism we had until the 70s and it’s what lead us to the late stage capitalism we have today

Even if you reset you will end up at this stage because accumulation of wealth and thus power will always occur and then the capitalist class has both the means and incentive to change the rules of the system and then they get more wealth and power etc etc

You can’t guard it unless you have power and under capitalism you don’t.

You gave the loaded gun to the capitalist class and then try to force them to do the “right” thing and not use the gun for bad stuff, except they have the gun… they’re not going to listen to you

Communism could also work if.... human nature wasn't as it is People are simply too asshole-y for capitalism to work as intended.

It's also the most productive economic system ever tried.

I think whether this is true highly depends on the definition of productivity and circumstances.

What definition of productivity are we applying here? Capitalism sure is great at inflating useless statistics. It also seems to be decent for actually valuable products and services. However, depending on what you take into account, it's not so clear that it's the superior system.

Furthermore, there have been several cases of socialist governments improving the quality of life at a rate never seen in capitalist countries. Almost completely eradicating illiteracy in less than a year (Cuba). Or vaccinating half the population in a few months (Burkina Faso). Of course, those governments are rare and don't last long thanks to the CIA.

Personally I'd say the most immediate solution - or more accurately, improvement - is to mix our current capitalist dystopia with as much socialist policies as possible. Many countries in the EU are doing thay and it seems to be working pretty well. Let's just copy and build on that, then worry about the next steps.

French-style.

So transferring property and land from private and semi-state actors to rich speculators for pennies on the dollar? The French Revolution wasn't very notable on the wealth redistribution front; if anything it made the rich even richer.

The problem is that you can use wealth and power to chip at (or on a good day take a sledgehammer at) those checks and balances, resulting in an inevitable shift form social democracy to fascism. Checks and balances are addons you layer onto the economic system at work that can change its workings to an extent but not fundamentally alter it; they can't be core to the system due to their very nature. That's why socialists (which, BTW, socialism is a wide category of systems characterized by the lack of private property and accumulation of wealth, not one particular system) call for the complete abolition of capitalism; whether you agree with that or not "but checks and balances" isn't an adequate response.