That word is the problem. It means something different for every person. To you it means one thing, to him it means another. When people criticize capitalism their arguments are always convincing because you project your own negative connotations into the word.
People say this, yet when I have traveled in some of the poorest countries in the world (Zambia and Nepal for example) they seem a lot more capitalistic than Europe / the US. It seems to bring some people wealth at the expense of others.
Right. Which is why when I kill someone, I go to jail, and when George Bush attacks a country, the crickets chirp.
> tearing it down because it is the Establishment and tearing down the Establishment is cool is counterproductive.
More importantly, it's a straw man.
edit: if anyone is seriously debating that's a straw man, use your words.
Unprecedented equality means that in a capitalistic (Western) society almost everybody eats a hot meal everyday day, has free time to enjoy, has an assortment of clothes, furniture and things, has a place to live with running water and electricity and appliances that run with said electricity.
All things that only the richest people could dream of enjoying just a couple of centuries ago.
That's an achievement of a hockey-stick rise in exploitation of fossil fuels and energy use per capita, not some esoterically defined system called capitalism.
Just about the only core tenet of capitalism are strong protections of property rights. All of the negatives typically associated with capitalism are due to failures in regulation (over or under) and the irrationality of human beings and their policies.