[jon-wood]

There is probably a middle ground somewhere between literal Soviet communism and unregulated capitalism. There are quite a lot of countries happily functioning in that middle ground, and while they're not making 15 people incredibly wealthy they're also not grinding the rest of the population into the ground.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Which countries do you have in mind? In the vast majority of the world today, people can become billionaires if they build a large company selling lots of goods or services people want to buy, without having to justify to anyone why the stuff they make serves "real human needs". You can do it in China, in India, in France, in Norway, etc.