Any other fish with significant and growing skepticism about capitalism? I kick ass at consulting but also I’m a thinker w/ a moral compass and have been feeling increasingly conflicted. Anyone else?

What do you mean by capitalism? If you mean the drive for people to exchange what they have with others for what they need, ie the underpinnings of all commerce and much of human activity since earliest recorded history, then you are talking about the single greatest force for human advancement ever. Which has saved unimaginable numbers of lives and raised billions out of poverty.

Every attempt to take the ability to act on that drive away from people has ended in abject failure, if not tyranny, famine and far worse.

Do not commit the logical fallacy of generalizing systemic failure from from bad actors and local problems.

Capitalism is the only economic system which does not require violence to sustain itself. Socialism (or other commonly touted economic systems) is enforced through the gun of the government.

I think corporatism and cronyism are the issue at hand. Those are government policy issues, not economic system issues.

Raw, unrestrained capitalism is terrible but capitalism with boundaries is the most proven path towards global well being

Yes. Especially when we get into the space of automation and saving money by getting rid of unskilled workers and turning their work to bots. Taken to an extreme, this concentrates wealth in the hands of very few and leaves those at the bottom with few choices and little economic stability. That has repercussions (see US 2016 presidential election). While we love to think big corporations will take windfalls from tax breaks to give back to their employees or reinvest in communities, we saw in both the 80’s and last year that trickle down economics doesn’t work.

Would feel better about it if we matched these automation activities with rural reskilling. Could help with the low unemployment numbers and the need to find more skilled workers. But when I talk about real work effects of this stuff with those who lack empathy or a broader appreciation of consequences from corporations, apparently another two heads grow from my shoulders.

Hopefully, Gen Z will help us be better humans who think not just about the bottom line but also about how it affects society as a whole. That’s not socialism; that’s society.

Yes socialism works so good! Just ask the residents of Venezuela and the former USSR. They loved it...

Short answer- yes. Longer answer- it seems to me capitalism requires growth to sustain itself, which suggests it is not sustainable (without repeating cycles of boom and bust). Capitalism may be the ‘best’ economic system we’ve found so far, but it has dangerous implications to our society and environment if left unchecked. By design, it will lead to the accumulation of capital, and thus power, who will use that power to secure more capital in a negative reinforcing cycle. Not sure I have a better solution, but it does bother me. In the end, one big freaking ponzi scheme some future generation will probably have to pay for.

If you give me everything I will build the apparatus necessary to equalize the population and provide you with a system of justice of your choosing. Money will not exist in this society so you can’t compare each other. You will each get 200sqft of space in identical dwellings provided by the state. You will each get one loaf of bread. Since nobody has to work, the state will force some of you to work in order provide food with the rest. You will be assigned work regardless of your preference. Work will be assigned equally across all races and genders. This will be a utopia of unparalleled equality

Pwc1 doctors video conferencing with patients is not a new thing. If you demand that doctors see patients face to face that's fine, but you're increasing the amount of work doctors must do and thus further increasing health care costs.

Getting rid of capitalism doesn't get rid of supply and demand.

Capitalism vs impact to our humanity is a silly juxtaposition.

Just go back to the federal person income tax rates that existed during the Reagan years. Treat all income the same, tax dividends and wages at same rate. Over time push retirement age to 70. Stop spending money proping up Afghanistan and other Middle East countries. Hold defense spending constant. Probably just solved for 70% of it. Still need to tackle healthcare.

The ignorance displayed by those criticizing “capitalism” is similar to those criticizing “religion”. I forget who said it first, but a devout Christian once said to an atheist, “I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either”. In other words, most critics of “capitalism” don’t understand what capitalism is. Succinctly, it is the dual belief that: 1) individuals have a (God given, I’d venture) right to the fruits of their labor; and 2) allowing trade among individuals, represented by markets, is the best way to generate economic surplus (wealth). Capitalism is better described as a market economy. It does not address the question of what should then be done with the wealth created, though empirical experience is that if you don’t leave a healthy chunk of it in the hands of those who created it, those productive creators sit on their hands or decamp for a jurisdiction that does. The hardest part for most anti-capitalist people to accept is that only about 10 percent of people in society are truly productive enough to create wealth. Another 60 percent are more or less “wealth-neutral” and the remaining 30 percent create negative wealth. About 15 percent of humanity does not have the cognitive skills necessary to create wealth in our complex economy and another 15 percent lack the behaviors to do it. Study up, anti-capitalists. And then read some history to learn what happens when you adopt decidedly anti capitalist economic models. To paraphrase what someone else said about democracies as a form of government, “capitalism is the worst way of organizing an economy ... except for all the others,". Completely agree with one of the other posters: the issues today are corporatism and cronyism. I’d add a third: extra-legal bureaucracy. All three of these problems have grown tremendously in the last fifty years, accelerating in the last couple of decades. These are government/policy problems. The prescription is a heavy dose of government intervention (it pains me to say, since I don’t generally believe that government is competent): 1) applying anti-trust laws aggressively against large corporations, especially those in sectors who have lobbied successfully for heavy regulation (which typically has the effect of protecting large companies relative to start-ups); and 2) draining the swamp, primarily at the federal level, focused on agencies that are responsible for extra-legal rule making. While Republicans are mostly fairly tagged with respect for existing institutions, I believe that one way to read Trumpism is the rising up of people who see in the executive their only chance to break up the illegitimate power of “big business” and “big government”’. Think back to Teddy Roosevelt — he was a “Republican”, but not really. What he was was a populist who slayed big business trusts. He didn’t have to deal with breaking up the swamp, but I’d bet he would have done that too if it had been a problem at the time. He was a “progressive populist”. I’d argue that’s what we have in Trump now. He’s not a conservative. If trump were to do one thing in the next two years that would guarantee a second term, it would be to aggressively pursue breaking up today’s trusts — starting with the big tech companies, closely followed by big Pharma and the “public” utilities. Banks, I’m not so sure, but throw one or two of them in for good measure. Do that and he’d assemble a coalition of the “anti-elite” that is of course much larger than the elite. And if folks we know don’t like it, that’s because we are or operate in the system of the elite. Our dissatisfaction with Trump is his intention — if we really care about the down-trodden little guy, more of us need to start questioning our allegiance to the system that feeds us. Stop virtue signaling and behave virtuously. To be “woke” to the ways in which our system has been corrupted by corporatism, cronyism and bureaucracy. Spend a few hours with a small business person to understand what I mean.

M3 you forgot the kicker, only the government will decide what is defined as equal and will also define what groups are eligible for equity.

Here’s a great story that gives me pause on capitalism vs impact to our humanity.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/03/10/health/patient-dies-robot-doctor/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F