I think of idealist = different from current reality based on some principles. Often to me idealist also means that they wish things were different from the way they ended up on ideological grounds, but those grounds are incompatible with the current incentives/systems that led to the current state for some reason.

I don't really think the current system is neutral, more that is just is what exists today for some reasons, and that anything else proposed has to actually contend with those reasons/forces/incentives.