[lasfter]

You cannot have capitalism without the bad stuff unless capital's interests are best served in abstaining from bad stuff. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to set up a system that aligns the world's interests with capital's, because our lawmakers are predominantly capitalists and act in their own best interests at the expense of everything else.

When money is the name of the game in elections, the legislature, and even the justice system, how is it even theoretically possible to implement capitalism without the bad stuff? The best you can do is hope the capitalists are nice.

[pcthrowaway]

Despite having capitalism, we still have many good social programs that help many people.

There is lots of bad stuff too, but the social programs can (theoretically) minimize the negative impacts of capitalism.

If everyone has access to food, shelter, transportation, health care, and mental health care (regardless of whether it's gourmet food or luxury shelter), people as a whole are going to be much better off than they currently are, and it will very much weaken the ability of capital to compel people to do things they'd rather not.

I'd argue there would still be problems with such a system, but it's leagues better than what we have now.

[lasfter]

If everyone has access to food, shelter, transportation, and health care, in what ways would we even still have capitalism? Like, what happens to landlords? Will we fund this stuff with heavy taxation on the wealthy? Will defense budgets be cut?

I obviously agree that social programs are necessary for a just and humane society. But I also think the opposition from military-industrial complex, energy lobbies, and rent-seekers of all stripes make it impossible to implement these programs effectively. Because at the end of the day the root of the problem is capitalism.