Because I’m not currently in the mood to take this too seriously…yet. I’ve decided I would just jump straight to the point I want to make.

What is it that Capitalism actually optimizes for? What is it best at doing that other economic systems are not good at?

The answer is pretty obvious if you take the time to actually look at how it manifests in real life: logistics.

That’s basically it.

Capitalism is extremely good at providing an x quantity of things within y amount of time, at z price. The price itself only really exists to signal that thing a is desired at x quantity in y time. It is then the job of market agents to go out and get it done.

This is also why things like delivery companies, or shipping companies, seem to excel within this capitalist environment. To the point that they even manage to avoid a lot of enshittification that plagues most companies in an economy. At least…I’m not aware of any issues regarding logistics companies (or companies that have to care about logistics).

It is also in this area that things like the quality of the service doesn’t technically matter, because it’s all about providing a quantity of things within a specific timeframe. So the quality is in the efficiency of this matter, and in the actual delivery of the goods.

This also explains why things like restaurant or store chains do especially well in capitalism and manage to out-compete their independent rivals: they have vast logistic networks that make the process of delivery to their stores as efficient as possible. So even if the quality of the product goes down, they can still provide that product at essentially all times for minimal cost.

I think it’s pretty important to focus on what the actual advantages and disadvantages of these systems are, rather than simply argue about which group of theory is best in practice. The truth is that no theory, whether it’s socialist or capitalist, actually works in practice at all. So no matter what, you’ll be forced to become an economic pragmatist.