Got my soap box and my dunce cap, let's go!
"You already have the facts, what you need is a story." "Stories can be true or false." - V for Vendetta (Gosh I'm so edgy XD)
Capitalism, or laissez faire, is the free exchange of goods and services. Nowhere in that statement is the idea that we need to enslave humanity to produce profit. It should also be noted that we in the US don't actually live in true Capitalism because of socialist policies. Real Capitalism is an Anarchist farmer's market. It's Social Darwinism: may the best salesman and product survive. If you don't like it, I suggest you start a parallel society instead of violently overthrowing a country and seizing its means of production.
As an aside, Marxism killed more of its own "citizens" than Hitler killed Jews. Communism also killed my maternal family from China, so there's my full disclosure. Sorry if I use "Americans" instead of US citizens, I'm primarily talking to humans from the US and I am dumb.
When people say "Capitalism sucks," what I believe they really mean is they hate the current economy and market and economic system and corporations and banking institutions and industrialization, which are NOT Capitalism. They may be consequences of human behavior in a Capitalist society, but it's not Capitalism per se.
Again, Capitalism is free exchange. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with freedom and individual sovereignty.
Which brings me to the problem: Consumerism. The problem in Capitalism is that anyone can buy from anyone, and because most consumers suck and are stupid, they'll buy from Amazon even though it's the megacorporation that ruined everyone's lives. People buy what's cheap, and Industrialization produces the cheapest goods and uses the cheapest labor, which kills the job market and makes US citizens poor, which makes them buy cheap goods. Poor people create problems, because they're deeply unhappy and disenfranchised. Poor people are less educated, have less time to educate themselves, and get addictions and other compounding problems that keep them poor. That's how you get plebeians, mob rule, and radical ideologies. Bread and circuses won't satisfy the deeper desire for prosperity and the lingering anger. Humans are exceptional at adapting to and accepting the current circumstance, but... people are getting angry. (This kinda trailed off)
Currencies are considered a store of value, a unit of exchange, and a marker of debt. If nobody trusts or accepts payment in a currency, it is worthless. Dollars aren't a good store of value because of inflation, and if people don't trust the dollar, they won't accept it as a unit of exchange. Debt is also very problematic, because dollars can be owed that don't exist. Because a dollar is a marker of debt, the marker of an owed dollar is equally viable as currency, so you can play with digital debt as if it were money, because money is debt anyways. So banks and bankers use owed money as money, which causes all sorts of problems. Basically, they're playing with IOUs for cows, and generating more IOUs for cows, but nobody even has a cow. Now imagine that you use this bullshit currency at home, and voila, you understand why a dollar isn't worth shit. With the miracle of compounding interest, bankers can generate more debt than there is real global value. Here's the kicker: the Federal Reserve are run by a group of banks, so the money is literally being printed by the bankers, and that inflation devalues the dollars that you earn and save. The dollars that an hour of your life is equivalent to.
So, the dollar is running on trust, which should be evaporating quickly. Previously it was tied to a gold standard, but it isn't anymore. The Petrodollar agreement requiring all countries to buy Saudi oil in USD recently expired. And then we printed 1/3rd of the money supply for COVID stimulus checks. Also the Federal Reserve seats are apparently retarded and can't explain basic economic concepts. Also also, BRICS formed an alliance in the East primarily between Russia and China, probably because of sanctions against them from the Ukraine War. Also, who the fuck trusts the U.S. anyways? Oh right, everyone's playing along with the US because if they don't we'll invade them or install a new dictatorship. But we've recently proven with our proxy war on Russia that we'll steal the money from your bank accounts whenever we feel like it, so really they're forced to accept a worthless currency from a ruthless country putting the gun to their head.
So what should you do about this? Buy assets that won't depreciate or will hold value. Don't hold on to dollars, because they could be worthless tomorrow (hyperinflation is real). Don't buy stocks, don't leave money in banks that you don't have to. Knowing what's a good purchase requires financial wisdom, but self-sufficiency and skills are always valuable. Everyone always needs food, shelter, and to cover their basic needs. If shit hits the fan, people will return to goods and services with real value.
Industrialization sucks because it reduces workers to cogs in a machine. No worker can be irreplacable, and every worker only does one part of the process. It's very efficient and absolutely soulless. Industrialization is applied wherever possible to increase profits and efficiency. The next step to efficiency is to use cheaper labor and remove problematic cogs such as humans. Industrialization isn't capitalism, but capitalist consumers incentivize it because it provides cheap goods. This causes smaller business that are not as industrious to fail and capsize, and in search of better profits US jobs were outsourced. Tariff-free and subsidized global trade causes this and makes us dependent on those cheap goods. Cheaper foreign goods made Americans appear richer in the short term, but now are the only way poor Americans can afford anything.
So, industrialization killed small businesses, US factories and jobs, created foreign labor, and now has made us dependent on foreign goods. Made In China. Industrialization isn't Capitalism, it's a result of consumer behavior and economic policies. And if anyone tells me it's good because it builds relations between countries they can fuck right off. Global trade doesn't make us peaceful, the US constantly uses the threat of its military might to maintain the status quo.
Trump's recent tariffs are personally long overdue and are stupidly obvious policies, but it's a bad idea. Too much, too late. The economic shock theoretically would be akin to an addict going cold turkey.