> everyone's lives better
> things get cheaper and better over time.
Oh, fuck off with that bullshit. Capitalism may appear to thrive when living in a first-world country, but only does so through exploitation and cutting corners. More to the point, isn't it funny that despite capitalism being pretty much the de facto economic system of the world only a few countries are actually deemed worth living in? No, some abstract 'informed exchange of currency' didn't magically cause things to appear out of thin air. People make things, and they are almost certainly underpaid and overworked. Behind every AI model there are X poorly paid workers around the world that curated the data that it needs to function. Behind every piece of clothing there are Y poorly paid workers in Bangladesh that made it. And behind every rechargeable battery there are Z Congolese kids risking death inside a mine in search for cobalt. We might try to (and often do) look away, pretend that those are the unfortunate results of corporate blunders that seldom happen, but they're not. Invisible exploitation is what makes the kind of lifestyle that is available in first-world countries possible.