I admire your enthusiasm for markets, and like your rhetorical style. I agree with you that the benefits of free economic exchange that are superior in a great many contexts, and that socialism as a system creates many limitations and ills. I personally think this concept of a real free market economy is transcendental and naive (like the concept of a "Grenzbegriff"). Never has existed, never will. Beyond that, those who religiously adhere to that kind of thinking tend to cause more harm than good. It obscures the messy duty to find out what's really going on out there.
Those families you mention HATED capitalism. Especially JP Morgan. In their view, capaitalism was too cannibalistic on profits. Too much competition killed margins.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute runs "Michael Moore Kills Capitalism with Kool-Aid" today: http://mises.org/story/3751 This was on "The Daily Reckoning" last week. Just reaching another audience.
True capitalism would mean that a company like Microsoft would give free computers away, until all computer manufacturers went bust, then they cannibalize the whole hardware market. Eventually true capitalism leads to one company controlling every aspect of life. This is exactly the opposite of what we have now. The people who think that capitalism leads to competition and a better quality of life for society are stupid.
You were responding a question that asked for an alternative...and seemed to forget to give one. So what is it?
Capitalism is not the issue. The problem is the average person is easily controlled by greed and other base instincts. You'll get good guys like Henry Ford, or Edison who are driven to bring change through inventions. And then you'll get low lifes like Ira Rennert who go about spreading democracy at the point of the bayonet so they can keep on polluting. Or guys like Madoff who will steal from their own mother. The problem is when these crooks take over the govt. apparatus like they did with the republicans. Then you get republican lobbyists inside congress voting for more lead in your child's water or the republican White House telling the SEC to lay off the crooks on Wall street. Capitalism isn't the best system, but it's better than the other systems. The problem is lack of controls to keep greedy lowlifes like Madoff and Rennert from doing whatever they please. Unfortunately after a decade of republican lowlifes controlling the govt. we now have an infestation of lowlifes operating with impunity inside our system. The real issue is the average voter not doing enough to educate themselves and keep on voting crooks and charlatans into govt.
It's a little late for this kind of film, now that the foxes guarding the henhouse ate its contents! I can't help but notice that only one segment of people is allowed to openly protest in the USA (not that anything changes, anyway), and that group is the Liberal Jews. Such as: Michael Moore Bill Maher Naomi Klein Noam Chomsky Jon Stewart Jim Cramer Matt Drudge Interesting, no?
The alternative is capitalism with the right checks like Anaconda mentions.. aka socialism. As for the current situation, I have a feeling it will resolve itself. A situation where rich get even more exorbitantly rich and the poor keep getting poorer always lead to social unrest. Look at what happened just 80 years ago. Physical labor is getting cheaper and cheaper everyday because of globalization. People at Wal-mart make less and less money. Who will be the consumers in the future, with the explosion of credit we saw a decade ago? The end result is becoming a country like brazil, with Americans living in slums and exorbitant rich in 50 million dollar mansions just 10 miles away.
It has to be managed with anti trust ideas... they deregulated everything over the last few decades and now we have the most Wall Street Centric Presidential Cabinet in the history of the country... real capitalism for just 30 years and they own the White House !!!!