Sometimes the overall trend in quality-of-life improvements (democratization, healthcare, education, ...) are attributed to capitalism, when in reality almost a

Sometimes the overall trend in quality-of-life improvements (democratization, healthcare, education, ...) are attributed to capitalism, when in reality almost all of these positive developments happened despite the capitalistic influences, at best, but usually in grave opposition to it. Capitalism has never brought us public infrastructure and education, environmental, food and workplace protections, social welfare, or universal healthcare. All these have been heavily fought for against capitalist interests, paid for with suffering, blood and tears. Where regulation is weak, life is hell. Outspoken free market absolutists/apologists tend to be people, who think of themselves as top predators, entitled to power and influence, always privileged, yet sooo unfairly treated in a more egalitarian system. (Everybody is gangster until they get punched in the face...) I think, these days political economy is, contrary to popular belief in entrepreneurial circles, mostly in agreement about the dynamics at work here: For the general case, free markets don't work without regulation. The most important markets (existential goods) are prone to natural monopolies. This shouldn't be surprising really, since profit doesn't relate to broader human welfare directly, how could putting selective pressure on this single metric directly cause prosperity?! It's coincidence or human confounding factors/intervention leading to good outcomes, despite any free market ideology. Without the causal link, any argument about efficiency or stability is void. Ideological capitalism, or free market absolutism is the Torment Nexus of Goodhart's Law. Case in point, while politically we're perpetually negotiating the extent of social darwinistic fallout of the capitalistic order, knowingly, but below the radar of affect, we're spending our planet, our long-term existential foundation three times over. Now, you don't need an academically forged "capitalistic system" in place to get self-inflicted crisis, as any preindustrial culture which transformed their prosperous island into desert rock can attest (over-consumption leading to terminal erosion), it's the lack of informed regulation in the interest of humankind.