[dragonwriter]

> Capitalism is buyer/seller/marketplace in lawful, competitive tension.

> A captured market is cartels, not capitalism.

No, capitalism is the economic system, dominant in the mid-19th century developed West, characterized by private ownership and unrestricted control of the means of production, and “capitalist” can refer either to a supporter of that system or member of the upper class in that system or similar systems which have priavte, though more restricted in use, ownership of the means of production, defined by deriving sustenance mainly from returns on their ownership of the means of production.

Capitalism has a strong tendency toward cartels and capitalists (in the second sense) tend to seek to capture markets (to have, in the words of startup culture, a “moat”).

Efforts to limit the free employment of capital to limit the development of monopolies/oligopolies/cartels were, along with the imposition of various basic rights for labor which also limit the free employment of capital, among the reactions against capitalism that became prevalent during the peak of the capitalist period and which propelled the progression from capitalism proper to the modern mixed economy.

[smitty1e]

The irony of anti-capitalist efforts is that they tend toward monoculture: a single strong actor controlling everything, e.g. the USSR.

Capitalism is the worst thing going except pretty much everything else.

Focus on the feedback loops that keep the markets fair for your Pareto optimal operating point.

[dragonwriter]

> The irony of anti-capitalist efforts is that they tend toward monoculture: a single strong actor controlling everything, e.g. the USSR.

That's very much not the case of anti-capitalist efforts generally. It's the case for Leninism and it's descendants, which even other socialists describe as “state capitalism”. But it's not the case for things like leftist anarchism, market socialism, favoring of labor cooperatives as a firm model instead of capital-based ownership, etc., labor cooperatives, and other non-Leninist-descended challenges to the capitalist order.