> Capitalism is supposed to help the people via efficient allocation of resources, not make money for a select few. I am far from convinced this is even a goal

> Capitalism is supposed to help the people via efficient allocation of resources, not make money for a select few. I am far from convinced this is even a goal of capitalism, much less the goal. There is a reason it trends towards monopoly. While I violently disagree with the moral position of the GP's post, I think their mentality is much more closely aligned with a working definition of the thing, which is to optimize for output of material wealth, while allowing individual people to benefit from private ownership of the means by which that wealth is created. At no point does the concept of "helping people" enter that definition; it only "allows" people to help themselves, if they can, within the limitations of a framework that compounds generational and socioeconomic success (and thus, already have some degree of "help" to stand on). > The original goal of any economy is to enable specialization and still provide for the basics. People aren’t just workers. I'd add some nuance here. The goal of any economy is to enable specialization towards the goals of the drivers of that economy and provide the basics for people who enable those goals. Not for people in some holistic, humanistic sense. And under capitalism, since that goal is production of capital, those people are absolutely just workers, except for the owners of capital, and the ones who fall out of the machine and become so many loose parts rotting on the floor.