America's Trust in Capitalism

 It is clear that Americans love capitalism.  The mythology that is reality in highly visible cases features mostly men founding companies with a vision and then delivering goods and services that reward them proportionally to the value delivered to the economy.  They earned it and they deserve it.  

But America is not a purely capitalistic society.  Taxation is also proportional to income, and the use of the taxes for defense and the public welfare is seen to be in conflict with pure capitalism.  There is a certain strain of libertarianism that believes government interference, including well meaning but inefficiently (and corruptly) used government programs, does little to address societal ills while interfering with the 'invisible hand' of capitalism.  That hand could solve many more problems more efficiently while creating even greater wealth.

Americans refuse to accept the amorality of capitalism that, left unfettered, would consume the planet and impoverish a large segment of the population.  Capitalism also generates aristocracy and plutocracy.  Inheritance of wealth results in the control of capital by those who did not earn it.  If the general thesis about capitalism is that the successful people in capitalist societies deserve veneration because of their vision and energy, it simply does not follow that the inheritors of the wealth deserve the same veneration.  Thus, the concept of pure capitalism is corrupted.  That is, capital naturally flows to meet the needs of society.  Government imagines it can best solve social problems, but in fact, government is inefficient and corrupt, perhaps in much the same way that inherited wealth is.  The government did not earn its power; it is empowered through taxation of those who generated the wealth.  

I do not believe there is a utopia that would eliminate all ills, but I also believe in a mix of capitalism and socialism that can achieve a more just and productive society that is better than either pure capitalism or pure socialism.  A society that invests in research can provide guidance for capital to achieve investments that address problems, thus anticipating needs in a longer and broader scope than is inherent in pure capitalism.  That is, the virtue of capitalism is how quickly and forcefully it can pivot to solutions relative to a governmental bureaucracy.  Both inherited wealth and government institutions will naturally seek to preserve the source of their wealth, thus thwarting the flow of capital towards solving social ills.  But agencies existing to identify problems that may need long term efforts or are at scales beyond the scope of individuals can identify problems, promote innovation to solve the problems, and provide capital seed to enable a capitalistic industry that solves the problems.