when the capital is borrowed then another party needs to earn a return which amps up the exploitation and justification... i.e. I need to pay back my investors and also pay myself.

What do you mean, "when"? This makes it sound like we could fix Capitalism by banning banks and investors or something. They're inherent to this system. Institutionalized loans were a corner stone when Capitalism emerged a couple of centuries back in Europe. If we want to organize society differently, we should have a honest and broad debate about that rather than focusing on one aspect / one group of supposedly bad actors.

True, I think there are specific organizational structures that allow or encourage exploitation and they are not limited to capitalism. imho, when people need to please another with power over them they more readily justify their actions when they exploit others. Institutionalized loans seem a step removed from this as there is less opportunity for influence from the powers that be.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around!

Can we possibly have discussions without them devolving into false dichotomies between two or three ideologies? It may come as a shock to some, but it’s not all about crony capitalism or Marxism, there are other options, hybridized options, and room for new thinking. It’s stultifying to see every critique of what the US laughingly calls the free market devolve into people screaming “Communism then, haha! Mao and Stalin killed 100 million!”

Can we at least pretend to argue in good faith?

> there are other options, hybridized options,

If you put economies on a line between free markets and communism, the economies do better the closer they are to free markets.

> and room for new thinking.

About every mix has been tried already, and the results are clear.