Don't let someone's opinion or conceptualization of "better" be the enemy of what's good.

Isn't that exactly what joshuaheard said, though?

No because capitalism, even on paper, will still imply poverty as a structural element. Without poverty and exploitation, the system cannot sustain itself. This without considering waste: Capitalism, being competitive at every scale, implies that to give feedback to the system, you have to waste. Waste resources, waste time, waste lives. The more waste, the better the outcome.

If it works by different assumptions, it stops being capitalism. So if you aim to remove these elements, you're aiming at destroying capitalism.

I cannot figure out how you came to the conclusion that poverty and exploitation are structural elements to capitalism.

In fact, I believe the opposite is true: that capitalism succeeds despite the drag that decisions made under desperate poverty (and the exploitation that comes with that) makes on the system. And, without that drag, capitalism would actually be far more successful than it already is.

One definition of capitalism is simply the re-investment of profits into improvements - better tools, for example. That in no way implies poverty as a structural element.

I believe what GP is trying to say is that capitalism necessarily creates such an element, since they view it as a class structure society.

I believe that's what they are saying, too. I think it's flat-out wrong.

If you and I are both working stiffs, and we both have $50 left at the end of the month, and you buy some beer, and I buy a used sewing machine so I can take sewing jobs in the evening, then I'm a capitalist and you aren't. That doesn't make us of different classes, though, (except that I may be mentally at a different place than you are).

>and I buy a used sewing machine so I can take sewing jobs in the evening, then I'm a capitalist and you aren't

I don't think that's true. In the traditional schema (for its faults and advantages), a capitalist is someone who both owns capital and employs wage labour. If you hired people to work on your sewing machine and kept their produce, that would likely make you a capitalist. At the end of the day, these examples don't work well to illustrate the notion of capitalism as a social phenomenon, rather than one involving two individuals who buy beer.

If you're interested, read up on the Islamic economic system. It allows for competition in a similar fashion that capitalism does, but it is still controlled. It also abolishes evil practices that feed on the poor like usury and interest, yet ensures that the poor get a good share by means of charity and other ways.