[seanhunter]

This is a “no true Scotsman” argument. Any counterexample with a proposed alternative will be criticised as either not viable, untested or unproven and yet pretty much every nation on earth has a system which includes some legal limits on the powers of corporations in order to protect people. Noone just does completely unfettered capitalism. The importance of this principle goes back all the way to the birth of capitalism with Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments”. The important question is how to strike the right balance of protection of workers vs growth and dynamism in the economy.

Notwithstanding that, the social problems arising from extreme inequality (with its roots in a type of capitalism that lacks empathy for people) are very real. I see them all the time in homeless people living beside the freeway when I visit LA or under the underpasses in SF. Here in the UK there is a growing group of working people who have had to choose between heating and eating this winter[1]. I’m not sure they feel like they have been elevated out of poverty.

[1] The guardian has been running a series of “Heat or Eat Diaries” where people document this situation eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/14/heat-o...