> So the final message seems to be "capitalism is bad, but not as bad as socialism"?

The message is that the power of individual corporations needs to be reined in.

First sentence of the article: "Some multinational corporations are now larger and more powerful than individual nation-states."

Later: "You could argue that in the earliest days of capitalism, something like the concept of free enterprise actually existed: firms of various sizes competed, with even the largest dwarfed in both size and influence by most nation states."

Also: "Unions can act as counterweights to the sometimes terrifying power held by management."

"an increasingly small number of ever-expanding corporate conglomerates dominate the labor market"