I guess I just feel like idle capital is the devil's plaything. While it could be available for R&D, isn't it more likely to go towards lobbying and bending or breaking the law while maintaining a war chest to discourage prosecution/accountabillity?

That “idle capital” is pretty central to the Ben Graham way of doing things. You keep it around waiting for a great investment. Weird things happen like when silver crashed in price for a couple of days in 2020.

Nobody's arguing against the capitalist perspective in the sense that I don't question their methods to access and grow more/their existing capital.

I'm saying I believe it is bad for pro-social ends and society and that we should be striking a better balance in ensuring we keep the money moving.

Or bubble up. Whatever the medium that is implied by this example should be viscous and sticky as shit tho.

Saying nothing of corporate buybacks of company stock