>>713594478
Capitalism as a pure ideal is great because there's the assumption that no one person could grab too much power in any one market because that would go against the self-interest of others who want the market to remain free. The problem is that in reality, the ability for capitalism to undermine options to keep the market free through regulation to prevent monopolies has proven far too easy because of phenomena like regulatory capture (where former industry types are elected to regulatory boards), and the amount of concentration is such that people who should be fighting back are instead piggybacking on these big winners because even the scraps they get are enough to set them for life, and fuck everyone else.

There's a good book by Thomas Piketty called "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". He describes inequality trending upward when the rate of return on capital exceeds the economic growth rate, and that the declining or stalling population growth of many countries makes the issue worse because the wealth remains undistributed if the rich aren't having that many kids, either.

Also, regardless of the economic system in place, sustainability should remain our primary concern. We seriously need to rethink what we consider to be "progress". We hate on bums for many valid reasons but then praise billionaires for creative value and jobs and so on, which in the short run, sure, that makes sense. But is it really productive if the process to make commodities takes more from our pool of resources than it gives? That's not productive, that's DESTRUCTIVE. And I know people will read this and go "Whatever, gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette", but when you do that with every vital natural resource, where's this gonna end up? I'm not some treehugger, this isn't about saving the Earth. It's about saving our fucking selves. Just try and leave the world as clean a slate as you can when you die so those in the future have as much choice on how to live as you.