> Successfully maximising capital extraction and gains for the subset that are relevant to your career
And this is the very crux of the issue, and what is being portayed as a 'successful career' is nothing more insulting embellishment based on than vulture/cronyist practices operating under the false veil of capitalism: short sighted thinking coupled with an perverse culture that enables this leads to this wide spread corruption, be it in banking/corp World or in Government. One doesn't have to look very far to see the parallels to this pandemic and that of 2008 to see nothing really changed, and its made it clear that the US may be the current hegemon but it's standing in the World has significantly diminished in my Lifetime.
Naomi Klein's shock doctrine outlines this very well, and unless this very thing is addressed we're seriously screwed as a Species. We don't need more Elizabeth Homes, Bernie Madoffs, Blyth Masters, Lloyd Blankfiens or Jamie Dimons and we should discourage any more from being created, because upon even the slightest amount of scrutiny you realize they're incredibly stupid and are failures at doing anything but screwing up and putting themselves in a position getting a massive pay out from it--almost always State subsidized.
Instead we ask more and pay less of those very people who keep the system from completely toppling over while wealth get even more and more concentrated. It should be very clear that a country that funnels this much into the investment class while 1/4 of the country is unemployed and ask its medical workers to function without PPE is a reflection of these misdeeds. And that the illusion cannot be maintained anymore.