> >We've seen some other propositions. The problem is that they all end in immiseration and authoritarianism,

Hey I don't know if you noticed, but the last president, who is on the record as a huge fan of authoritarians like Putin and Kim jong Un, literally tried a fascist takeover of our country, which would have installed him as the authoritarian leader. So if "authoritarianism" scares you, simping for capitalism ain't the way to prevent it

Stakeholder > stockholder. We need market reform. 85% of the markets are owned by 10% of people. When workers perform well, and their company makes profit, the company uses those profits to buy back stocks. Effectively, the value of labor is funneled to the top in our current system. To fix this, we need fiscal policy that focuses on workers, rather than capital. I’ve no issue with people investing in companies, and getting rewarded for the success their capital helps create, but it should more of a risk than it is today. In this iteration of our system, all of the risk has been outsourced to the workers. Wall-Street doesn’t lose, the American tax-payers are always their to bail them out, whether we want to, or are even told about it, or not. So, the people providing the labor, creating the value, and taking all the risk…those people should be able to own homes, afford health care, afford to raise a family, to dream, and work hard to achieve that dream. But that’s not the current reality in our shareholder first markets. Eventually, this devolves into oligarchy, or some form of autocracy, most likely to play out via fascism…especially if you allow outside money into politics, because the working class loses power, they lose economic equality, which all other equality follows, and governments fail, due to caring for only a single group.

You talk about other systems that end in autocracy, and/or misery but capitalism does too. All economic systems trend towards the consolidation of power and wealth. It is the end-stage of all economics. A lot of older civilizations would reset their economies every x years, due to this.

That is the result of the introduction of humans into theory. It’s the result of the types of people who seek money and power. Greed is just another addiction, no different than heroin, and different people are more susceptible to it. It is the the role of your chosen governmental system to hold this trend back. Ultimately however, it falls on the workers, the citizens, to hold those in power responsible. Capitalism has killed just as many people as communism, don’t kid yourself otherwise. Capitalism is to blame for immense global suffering, and I’ll remind you, America has backed nearly every authoritarian dictator globally…hell, we sat most of them on the throne to further capitalism, and enrich a few. War is a racket of the rich. We export a lot of the consequences of our system, from pain and suffering, to pollution. Out of sight, out of mind.

That being said, I do think a form of capitalism is probably the best choice for a society, with some aspects of socialism sprinkled in. The answer ultimately lies in regulations, and making economic equality the top priority. You cannot allow a certain group to amass wealth untold, or else you increase the number of those in society who can be bought, because they have no chance of ever earning the amount they’re offered.

The alternative is to let the rich continue to accumulate more wealth that does nothing while the rest of humanity starves. Corporations shouldn’t have the right or ability to hoard wealth overseas to avoid paying their fair share.

If it doesn’t bother you that you personally paid more in taxes than many millionaires and billionaires I don’t think anything is a convincing argument because the status quo and it’s inevitable future is acceptable. It’s not acceptable to me.