[gnaritas]

> The market optimized for a better solution for consumers, and that solution was cheaper labor and automation.

While not optimizing for the externality that those consumers are also the labor that's displaced thus destroying their ability to consume and thus not not a better solution for consumers after all.

The market is not magic, it fails often and it's very annoying to continually hear people brush off those failures with the no true Scottsman fallacy. If capitalism means to you only a perfect free market then it's a meaningless term because no such thing exists and more importantly that ivory tower definition is not what people are referring to when they use the word, capitalism as implemented in the real world is what they're referring to and jumping in and claiming "that's not capitalism" adds nothing to the conversation.

So yes, that is capitalism, because this kind of thing is exactly what capitalists do: they curry for favors from government to get into protected positions to avoid competition. Capitalism is what capitalists do, and this is exactly the shit they do. Crony capitalism is still capitalism.

[malandrew]

> So yes, that is humanity, because this kind of thing is exactly what humans do: they curry for favors from government to get into protected positions to reap all the benefits.

FTFY. The problem you describe is a human problem that will happen in any system, capitalist, socialist or mix of the two. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Capitalism simply provides power in a normal distribution proportional to wealth. Socialism provides power in a power law distribution and the head of that distributions constitutes absolute power.