I think there are issues with our Democracy and our Media, not with our Capitalism.
PS: if we wanted to, a democracy could simply make it illegal buy investment property insuring that everybody had somewhere to live. Freeing people from the burden of rent. The government could probably even provide mortgages "at cost" so that the bank leaches didn't take their pound of flesh too.
We could examine our society at large and free ourselves of rent seeking behavior.
The question is, how do you stop Capitalism from subverting Democracy and the Media to perpetuate itself? I think one can successfully argue that capitalism is a human-scale paperclip maximizer, but for capital.
> PS: if we wanted to, a democracy could simply make it illegal buy investment property insuring that everybody had somewhere to live. Freeing people from the burden of rent.
Only if the wealthy allow it. You don't have to look very hard to find dead-in-the-water concepts/projects that have the support of a large majority of Americans across the political spectrum, but are hated by the wealthy, and therefore their politician proxies. These tend to die despite public popularity - alas, that's the downside of representative democracy.
You craft a set of rules that Capitalism must play within. We have a pretty good set of rules now. No murder, no slaves, no obvious pollution. But there is room for improvement.
My suggestions are... 1. More media diversity (Media ownership rules). 2. Cap political donations to something that everybody can afford. (Say for example no more than $500 per person per year, no company donations)
I also sometimes suggest that the media (and social networks) should be held more accountable for the things they print and broadcast. (it's an unpopular opinion)
America is a lot bigger than where I am in Australia. Here, I'm optimistic that we can see small incremental changes that will help us balance power. regardless of the opinions of the super rich.
With a diverse media, enough pressure can occasionally be applied in key areas.
> Talking about "inequality" in the abstract is not worthwhile.
I thought the connection between the problems you state and inequality was obvious. I guess it has to be spelt out: inequality means the super-rich become literal rent-seekers by buying houses - not to live in, but for speculative investment purposes - hence current cash-only offers at ridiculous, above-asking prices. They don't care about negative externalities because they want more money now, and there is nothing to act as a check on their desires (since that requires money) so there's a lot of uncleaned waste. Lastly, the government bails them out because they are king-makers and politicians come to kiss the ring during election fundraisers. Elected positions are at risk ever so often during election season, but being wealthy is usually a lifetime "appointment", and wealthy people have more solidarity than politicians - and that's to politicians disadvantage.
Inequality results in power imbalances; the societal problems are second-order effects of the power imbalance. It is not "abstract" to point out that the first-order effect is problematic of, and by itself.