To be fair, we don't yet know how capitalism ends.

We know how everything else does, though.

Heat death of the universe?

I agree, given the right definition of “capitalism”.

Unfortunately “capitalism” has two quite different meanings. Which are rarely clarified in use.

Capitalism with a big C, a too common overarching ideology, gets bent to mean whatever the greedy, unethical and rich want it to mean so they can get more money.

But small c capitalism, evolving from both practical and ethical foundations, is a system so useful it has multiplied the benefits of civilization. But it is just one such system.

It can’t do everything, it needs other independent systems (justice, dispute resolution, rules of clarity, risk & trust limiting systems, for starters) to work, and extending it to places it doesn’t work causes great harm.

(Like when perversely applied to those enabling systems, in big C form, as is happening now.)

> any more than arson, burglary, or extortion is capitalism

Indeed.

Hah. I’ve been hearing this No-True-Scotsman for Capitalism for decades now. It’s what we’ve got and is widely understood as capitalism. I won’t repeat your last sentence but the sentiment is similar.

It's no different from what apologists for Communism and any number of other -isms will tell you. "B...b...but it's never really been tried." Capitalists are as entitled to that excuse as anyone else.

It's almost as if no economic, social, or political system known to mankind will stand up for long under a determined onslaught of corruption.

I'm not sure "well THEY do it so I want to do it too" is the strongest argument.

It's malicious rent seeking. Is that capitalism? Once you run out of easy problems to solve, you create problems for yourself to solve.