If you remove greed, lust, ambition, negative emotion and fear from the equation, while giving society a set of guidelines, they wouldn't be failures since they would be obedient, tranquil, and intelligent. Some sort of industrialist socialist empire would form and proto-humanity would reach the stars.
-----

An attitude shift towards what? Consumerism? Capitalism is built off the exploitation and corruption of the human condition, i.e a prison with invisible walls. There will never be a perfect world with the current system. I don't see how communism (see: world peace) would be "un-necessary" either.