There are so many bad things about capitalism, its only advantage is that it is better than all the other systems. (that we currently know of)
And we don't even have real capitalism. We don't have real free markets.
If we had these, would real capitalism with real free markets be good? Can those stand on their own, or do we need to constantly protect from bad-actors?
This gets really tricky. And even more complicated as we move into a future where things are so much different than we have today. What we consider important changes drastically. What we accept as necessary evils becomes, well we don't accept them. Minimizing pollution becomes essential in most people's minds.
If we had omniscient central planners (and assuming they were good, and wanted what is best for humanity) would communism work? This is the scope of the question i wish to ask about capitalism.
Can we minimize or eliminate the downsides of capitalism, and still keep the upsides?
In the future, will we even want the upsides?
The Pareto Principal
The number one thing that capitalism does is that it allows the best to perform to the extent of their abilities. This is the thing that communism (as a govern-cement) completely fails at.
You see, the lions share of what gets produced (food, shelter, clothing…) is because the best 20% are allowed to use their ability to improve their lives. And so, are self motivated to achieve.
Allowing this means the people do not starve, even if the bottom 80% just stops working (goes on the dole).
However, crony capitalism puts a damper on people introducing disruptive technologies. The oligarchs try to buy it all up before it gets out, or try to control it, and make sure they come out on top after the change.
And, when you have enough money to decide who are the winners and who are the losers, T.H.E.Y. can limit a lot of the top 20% from ever getting anywhere. Such as, the best artists are not the ones having their art sell for millions of dollars. Those artists are decided by the oligarchy, and are usually payouts (a way to launder money) to certain people.
Banksters, the reason we don't have anything real
We do not have free markets because, at minimum, half of every transaction is in a fiat that we are forced to use.
And that fiat has no tie to reality. It is not priced by the market, it is priced by market manipulation.
Also, capitalism doesn't really exist when there is a group that can buy up everything, by simply printing money. This doesn't even include those that are more powerful than they should be because of being closer to the money printer.
Crony capitalism treats capital that was earned through hard work, and actually creating more in the world, and capital made out of thing air / money printing. And this is really, really bad. Inequalities arise that should have taken care of themselves. Things like monopolies usually fall apart quite quickly under capitalism, but under crony-capitalism they are protected, and allowed to flourish.
Does Georgie Zeros have lots and lots of capital? Or is it all imaginary as he has added nothing real to the world for many, many years. Can Musk borrow against his "stock" at current market prices? He can only do this because of money printing. There are multiple reasons, like, if he sold all that "stock" he would get no where near current market price. The buy wall would be decimated, and the last "stocks" would be some at less than ⅒th of the value. (or less) There is only so much money in existence ready to buy stocks. So, that is the maximum you could get, even if you sold ALL the stock.
So, these people are the "richest" people on the planet, only by money printing shenanigans. The rich borrow against their stock, not sell it. It is not a thing that the rich choose to do, it is something the rich HAVE TO do. They have to stay inside the game, they have to play by the bankster rules. If the "rich" actually started selling anything, they would have to price it so low that the avarage person could buy it.
Like, if all the baby boomers put their houses on the market, without there being any banks offering mortgages, then the average house would be only worth what the average person had in savings. So, less than $500.
When We Stop Selling Life Necessary Items For Money
If you were able to tie up all the water sources, you could sell water for any price people could pay. And they would pay because they needed it to live.
People have paid in gold coins for a meal during times of famine of food or money.
In the desert, it is common to not deny anyone water. It is good to be generous, but when you start denying a life need, you will find yourself on the pointy end of retaliation.
So, in the near future, we will not sell land for money. How could we even think of selling the place that brings us food? Our "place" (the property, and the improvements that allow us to live) is not for sale. And if it was, it would only be traded for another "place" where we could life.
Commodities can be exchanged for commodities. And so a commodity money could be exchanged for other commodities. But, trading mere commodities for things that are essential to life is a no-no. That we have allowed banks to create mortgages is a huge sin.
In this kind of way, we have allowed crony-capitalism to destroy people. When capitalism is supposed to serve people.
In the future, we will value things differently, and there will be different levels of "money" to buy them. And it may be such that there will be a necessary level of trust before "money" will even be accepted. The manufacturer of the commodity may be as picky as the buyer of that commodity.
And yes, this may extend to food. Whereas, people, in the future, may not exchange food for gold. What is the use of gold? You cannot eat it. However, those who grow food will gladly exchange for other food. And will probably also gladly help those who tried to grow food and failed. But, if you think you can just buy food, like we do today at a grocery store, you will be mistaken.
If we move into a world where all of your needs are provided by the community you are a part of (everyone is a part time farmer), and so everyone is mostly self sufficient, then how does that change the entire structure of the economy? Does capitalism even exist? Crony-capitalism will be gone completely. But, maybe capitalism, the root meaning, being how you use the "capital" that you have to get what you want/get a better life.
Another thing that destroys our current view of capitalism is things like 3D printing. (using the word as many futurists like to use it) Where you have a fairly inexpensive piece of machinery that allows you to produce almost anything you want. There isn't the need to gather enough capital to build a factory, and get all the machinery, and train all those people (after you got them to work for you) to build the thing you want. It makes having a huge amount of money kinda meaningless.
On that subject, we won't see anyone with a huge amount of "money". Getting such would mean helping out many, many people. (no longer can money just be printed) We would have the many self-made millionaires, but we would have almost none of the billionaires. Further, a person getting rich would mean a lot of people who helped, would get rich also. And if that wasn't the case, if he screwed his workers like many Corp CEOs seem to do now, no one would buy from them.
Basically the idea of monopolies and monoposonies become almost impossible (just like how capitalism is taught in schools these days). They will fall apart so fast based on ease of entry that 3D printers allow, and public opinion is extremely important for selling anything. And lastly, that the pile of money won't buy you anything that would allow you to have control over others.
I really do not know if we will call the "thing", in the future, capitalism. But, it won't matter, we will have left behind the idea of letting people starve by controlling their money.