You are both missing my point. It's not about the "bad" capitalist. It's about the way capitalism works. You can be as good a guy as you want to be, but the system will destroy you if you don't play by it's rules. Because the system isn't about rewarding good guys, or punishing bad guys. It's about giving all the decision-making power to the capital investor, and it doesn't care how that investor got that capital, or who gets hurt by the decisions he makes with it. That's what I meant by "no one cares" about anyone finding any balance ... because the system doesn't care about balance. It's not designed to define or protect any balance. Quite the opposite. It's designed to create one big winner who ends up with all the monopoly money. And everyone else gets nothing. It's a fundamentally toxic, anti-social system that if it's left unchecked, will destroy any society foolish enough to engage in it.
I think you missed my point, which I believe was also
@Revoltingest 's point as well, and which was about how an employer chooses employees wages - not whether capitalism is good or bad.
But since you've gone there, I've identified five things that capitalism promotes. Like most other people, I approve of the first three, but not the last two, which can be mitigated with government regulation and oversight of business, and with policies that support a middle class.
- Capitalism makes one more creative. One has an incentive to find a new niche or market with a new popular product or service..
- Capitalism makes one more efficient, since efficiency translates into increased profit.
- Capitalism promotes being industrious. Working harder ought to improve revenue.
- Capitalism makes people willing to harm others and damage the environment for profit. Business needs to be regulated. Make these activities are too costly in terms of penalties and prison time.
- Capitalism causes wealth to concentrate. The middle class needs protection to thrive, to have their labor valued fairly and share the profits of capitalism more equitably (unions, decent minimum wages, employer matching contributions).
Capitalism worked well for me. It worked very well for America, too, until the successful effort to deregulate business and undermine the labor force in management's favor beginning about 1980 promoted the two bad guys listed above damaging the work force and the environment. This is probably what you object to, and so do I.
But let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. Let's preserve and even facilitate that engine of innovation, efficiency, and industry. Unregulated capitalism is bad. It's Dickensian capitalism and Robber Baron capitalism - dismal. But done properly, it's a huge win for the people, who could once support a family, a mortgage, a car payment and an annual vacation with a single income, possibly unskilled like mailman. That was capitalism, too.