This has nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism is merely private ownership of stuff. When people use the word “capitalism” like this, it inevitably sounds like a naive Marxist classism throwback. Anything bad is merely attributed to capitalism, and set aside the generations of economic nuance we have developed since the gestation of that dysfunctional construct.

> Capitalism is merely private ownership of stuff.

No, it's private ownership and trade of stuff. That seems nitpicky, until you contrast it with other economic systems, in which case trade is strictly regulated, and it becomes obvious that's a large part of it.

> the generations of economic nuance we have developed

You mean the nuance that takes us further from a pure capitalistic and free market system into a hybrid system where there are regulations and communal (government) efforts to counteract the portions of capitalism and free markets that are not palatable for a modern society because they fail to lead to outcomes we want?

There are reasons why the poor of today are better off of the poor of a century ago, and many of those reasons are not much in line with capitalism and the free market, while others are. Minimum wage, regulations on predatory practices, etc account for a lot of that, while advancements in technology and medicine much of the rest.

Without regulations, which are a restriction on private trade, we'd still be dealing with the things Upton Sinclair chronicled so long ago (whether embellished or not).

I’m not sure what you’re arguing here aside from capitalism is also free trade. I think definitionally no, but semantically or practically maybe. Free trade is also a thing, sure. I’d like to examine the mechanism you’ve identified to attribute the sources of betterment, if you are not merely making it up as you go.

> Capitalism is merely private ownership of stuff.

That's a very narrow definition of capitalism. It's not just 'stuff' that is privately held, it is also the means to generate profit and a very large chunk of the available capital. The effects of that go way beyond just 'stuff', and can make it next to impossible for someone born at the bottom of the stack to work their way up. Of course, some inevitably succeed at this and they are held up with great fanfare to prove that 'the system works' but on average, if you are born at the bottom your life will likely continue to at that level of society without much chance of upward mobility because the system is stacked against you.

And payday loans at exorbitant rates are a mechanism that keeps people down.

I agree with your punchline, but all the hypothetical before it is strictly unrelated to capitalism. As if peons in the European middle ages living under non-capitalism, Cambodia, Venezuela, or various theocracies have this remarkable social mobility. This type of analysis is inferior to pointing to correlates with moon cycles or fluorinated water; it directly ignores history.

You're basically defining capitalism as "some people have lots of money"

Yes, well, “capitalism” is built around “capital” aka money, assets, real estate, etc etc.

>You're basically defining capitalism as "some people have lots of money"

Perhaps the most realistic definition.

You could also restate it as "most people don't have lots of money"

Regardless of how much you yourself actually have at the time.

I think it's good to look at "capital" as "other people's money" (OPM).

Of course if you have enough of your own you might not really need any of OPM if you don't want to get involved.

OTOH in that case you might be one lending out some of your own "underutilized" money to others who are "interested" in OPM of some sort.

The repayment includes the interest intended to compensate for the risk & delay in repayment, so it simply means more of OPM is coming back than yours that went out.

If none of this OPM was changing hands there would still be the same amount of capital.

But the capital-ism where the system is structured so financial rewards of labor are subjugated to the financial rewards of capital itself according to its magnitude would not be as much of an actual thing.

And it's this feature that can be exploited by greed in the most disadvantageous way compared to less OPM-oriented financial foundations. Regardless of the mathematically enhanced returns to the most shrewd capitalists, the greed itself subtracts from what actually could have been overall.

As the magnitude of the money that most people don't have a lot of, becomes less significant compared to the some people who have lots of money, the unlevel playing field tends to tilt toward the vertical as a function of greed.

Capitalism means rich people decide what happens. This is easily observed in e.g. USA. [0] "Democracy" would be something else.

[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

Rich people decide what happens in every system of trade and governance.

"Communist" China is a lot better if you're rich. So is "socialist" Europe. So is "capitalist" America.

The -isms have never really mattered.

The golden rule truly is "whoever has the gold makes the rules".

Yes, very rich people are a problem. Not every society has the same proportions of them, however. USA before we relaxed our top tax rates didn't have so much of the political agenda determined by the same 500 people. Once billionaires have infested a society, however, they are very difficult to exterminate for the reason you cite.