Society has chosen to give the market relatively free reign. Society could also choose to redistribute profits and incentivise companies to act in the interests of society in general, rather than their just their shareholders. You might disagree with that, you might even have a profound moral objection to that, but on a societal level it is very much a choice.
It's really not much to do with how humans organise society; it's about technology. At the current level of technology we have, smart humans are more productive than less smart humans. The only way to reverse that would be to get rid of a lot of modern technology, which no country can do unless it wants to become backward.
> Society could also choose to redistribute profits and incentivise companies to act in the interests of society in general
If the company still wants to produce good and cost-effective products it'll still have to hire smart people. There's no way round that.
In resulted in a lot of communist zealots, but dummies, going to top positions. They did what they could, and it resulted in total economic collapse few decades later. It resulted in food rations, where a family of 4 could only buy a dozen of eggs a week, one pound of meat, and could barely buy bread/milk and other necessities.
Some folks here have really never faced the dire consequences of communism and how it created a poor society across the board.
When I was 11, I had to stay in bread lines so our family could eat. It looked like this:
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/hungry-peopl...
Also, from what I know, “socialist” societies in the eastern block were closer to socialism-flavored dictatorships resulting from power grabs and nepotism on epic scale.
I feel torn. Obviously no one with morals wants to see others left behind in a capitalistic society. On the other hand welfare states seem like pyramid schemes and the further left you go with giving more power to government the worse the lives of citizens get.
I found Penn Jillette’s talk on YouTube about why he found libertarianism eye opening.
Still, our entire economic system seems ready to collapse. Many of our best business leaders are starting to agree that we may need to tax corporations that use robots and provide a reverse income tax to give people money to live.
This frame has nothing to do with what I had in mind. Please let go of it completely and re-read my comment.
The prerequisite being social skills and/or ability to BS and politic.
Sadly, as you pointed out, reality is never fooled for long and the consequences of bad leadership eventually catch up.
And to add to that bears shit in woods.
Note: The point in the sarcasm is that societies have made all those kinds of those choices and have failed miserably and better choices have survived. Markets work because they give maximum possible respect and freedom to individuals without being judgemental. Markets promote peace, brotherhood, co-operation, prosperity and stability. Most other systems meet violent end.