Unchecked capitalism allows for the snowballing consolidation of wealth and power, and is therefore inherently authoritarian/exploitative of others. It is possible to have markets that encourage and reward creativity, novelty, and competition without allowing any person or entity to become too powerful (mind you, wealth and power are always the same thing - or more specifically - two sides of a single coin).

This is also why you will see leftists attacking liberals - because liberalism is simply an extension of capitalism: the allowance and encouragement of inequitable consolidation of wealth and power. An egalitarian ends must actively oppose, prevent, and even correct such consolidation. Capitalism and liberalism are the enemies of freedom, liberty, and justice.

When you have a system that values profits over everything, it tends to (either by accident or design) exploit workers and destroy the middle class.

With capitalism, you’ll pay the absolute minimum needed to get workers, regardless of the value they create for the business and regardless of how much profit your business is making. You’ll collude with other businesses to keep wages down, because again that’s a way to increase profit. You WONT support any worker rights laws like weekends, PTO, benefits, minimum wage, etc.

You can argue that the free market takes care of itself, but we’ve seen that isn’t true. Companies constantly exploit customers and workers. They will raise prices and lower wages in ways that a pure “free market” theoretically wouldn’t allow.

Now this isn’t to say capitalism is all bad. I do think smart people and hard working people should be rewarded. But any sufficiently large system is going to have some corruption. I’d like to have a reasonable minimum standard of living for everyone before we run off and let capitalism give us multi-billionaires. If everyone was guaranteed enough for a decent standard of living, I’d be fine with the rest being as capitalistic as anyone wants. But we dont have that. Minimum wage is $7. Healthcare is shit and tied to employment. Etc. etc.

I think that I hear the argument against capitalism the most from people who reference unskilled labor. Sure, the person working in a warehouse is getting screwed wage-wise because the company is greedy and they doesn't have a unique skill set. But the guy in the office that is maintaining a proprietary piece of software has the leverage to demand a higher wage. I think when it comes down to it, capitalism is just another version of the economic "game". I prefer this game to socialism (or really any other economic philosophy) as I know how to work the current system better. Don't want to get screwed in your career? Specialize! I understand a lot of people don't want to hear this as it puts the impetus on us instead of the rich,, but that's how the system works (for now). I will always be on-board with people wanting to better themselves and their situation (especially at the expense of the rich) but getting something for nothing just isn't realistic without massive mobilization of the lowest wage earners. Not to mention the hurdles in our government.

I think people in this thread is generally see capitalism as the reason for inequity and people's misfortune with medical bills etc. As a resident of a Scandinavian country this strike me as odd. All Scandinavian countries are for sure capitalistic but we pay high taxes and get for instance free education, free healthcare, retirement pension etc. in return. The opposite to this is not capitalism, but liberalism, in the sense that society should stay out of people's business and "freedom above everything else". Countries where things goes to hell need to give up some freedom to benefit the greater good which I'm turn is going to help themselves.

There is a difference between capitalism and capitalism-without-rules (which some might call libertarianism). Capitalism is meant to have rules to make it fair and prevent anarchy, just like, say, football has rules to make it fair and prevent anarchy. The rule makers are the government and the rule enforcers are/is the legal system (like in football, the FA makes the rules and the Referees and others enforce those rules). So while capitalism incentivizes business creation and innovation in the name of money-making, there are supposed to be checks and balances to make it fair and in the best interests of all citizens.

Capitalism today especially in the United States is practiced more like capitalism-without-rules where the government is owned by capital owners and therefore does a poor job of making rules that are fair for all and a poor job of curtailing unbridled capitalism. It also appears that the highest level of the legal system in the US is also heavily influenced by capital owners.

I suspect what the “hate” is about is the way capitalism is practiced today.

If capitalism was being practiced responsibly with checks and balances by well-functioning governments and judiciaries, then there would be less hate. This will only happen if people hold governments accountable through protest. Voting is not enough because capital can “buy” all voting options/parties. Protest has brought many civilizing changes to capitalism, especially in the US in the 60s, but the pendulum has swung back to the public not being organized enough or not caring enough to force governments to do their jobs.