Judging by your first paragraph, I suspect (but 'm not sure) you did not get the spirit in which capitalism was defined. (or the way I think it was defined) i.e

Judging by your first paragraph, I suspect (but 'm not sure) you did not get the spirit in which capitalism was defined. (or the way I think it was defined) i.e free enterprise. As far as the long term outcome is concerned your are essentially correct. To the extent I have read about the term capitalism, one area is almost completely ignored - private land ownership as 'birth' right. ( a subject in its own right) It's a larger discussion though - both so called capitalism and socialism as normally characterized misses many fundamentals of human life, but has huge appeal for the simplistic minded economists, philosophers and masses alike. When you get the fundamentals wrong, sooner or later things turn sour. And my firm belief is that one cannot get the fundamentals right with an IQ of 100 except for tiny groups of people, say less than 150.