I think the best way to look at Capitalism is as a popularity contest. Popular products win. When technology advances to the point that it doesn't take as much

I think the best way to look at Capitalism is as a popularity contest. Popular products win. When technology advances to the point that it doesn't take as much labor to produce them, there are high barriers to entry, and distribution and communication of popularity are frictionless, you end up where we are - massive inequality. Technology, i.e. 'increased economic efficiency' is the cause. It leads to a world where small players either become popular quickly or lose. And 99% of small players fall into the latter category. People don't see this. They complain about inequality while they sport their iPhone apparently unconcerned that they are contributing to inequality by buying a popular product from a company that is sitting on more cash than some nations. But will they buy a phone from a small hardware startup, allowing a diverse phone market to thrive, employing an order of magnitude more people? Nope. And yet they complain about inequality, totally ignorant of its systemic nature and their part in it.