"Capitalism" is a funny way of spelling "China".

To be clear, I'm not saying the CCP is a force for good. I don't really think it is; I'm not a fan of them at all. They do a lot of fucked-up shit. But it is a statistical fact that this lifting out of poverty has been going on since 1980 comes entirely from one country's influence on the data, and that's China. The rest of the world is net neutral, with some losers and some winners.

Capitalism only improves human life when heavily restrained, and what we've learned since about 1980 is that even mild, neutered, "nice guy" capitalism will, in time, erode the restraints put upon it... and then you get the catastrophe of the American 21st century... which is probably going hit Europe just as hard in 10-15 years because, ultimately, dangerous and greedy assholes aren't limited to one nation but exist everywhere.

It did and the best time has passed. Right now we have rich getting richer poor getting poorer and middle class evaporating. The way it works it may no longer serve the purpose. Not like there is any viable alternative. We have finite resources and ever growing population. Unless these factors are mitigated somehow (dirt cheap infinite energy for example) we do not have much to look forward to.

Just because paperclips are useful doesnt mean we should keep making more of them forever.