Vitality, Self-Interest, Capitalism

Vitality entails Growth, which, in turn, entails Increase.  Thus, Profit can be an indication of Vitality.  However, Self-Interest is too vague to be understood as grounding a Profit-motive, and, its most common interpretation, Self-Preservation, connotes maintaining, not increasing.  So, Capitalism, as conceived by Smith and most of his successors, is not inherently vital.  In contrast, a drive to Self-Increase could motivate the seeking of profit, but only as an episode of personal growth, to which an increase in possession of inanimate objects is not in itself equivalent.  So, the theoretical justification for the proposition that Capitalism is more vital than Communism, a staple of American Political rhetoric in recent decades, seems lacking.