For what it's worth, I consider myself a hippie...and the system in no way thrives on love. Love is an emotion...a temporary feeling. So is hate. Niether one causes any society to operate or not in any sense of the word...it's rhetoric.
Empathy, and caring for your fellow man, and the world we share is the basic hippie ethos...something I very much believe in...and that doesn't support a corrupt system.