At the same time, the nation has more industrial productive capability than ever before. Technology keeps increasing the productivity of labor to ever-higher levels, producing huge surpluses of goods and services. The nation overflows with wealth. Clearly, any reasonable well-working government would organize society so the wealth could be directed to meet the needs of people and solve social problems. Yet our government is paralyzed in the face of easily solved problems because the prevailing economic system of capitalism does not allow the distribution of wealth on the basis of need.
Profit is realized when goods and services are sold for money.
You don't have the money, you don't get the stuff. More and more Americans have less and less money because the profit system is also a competitive system. Different companies and countries compete for the same markets to sell their commodities and realize profit. To be competitive in price and still realize a profit, they have to produce commodities at lower cost, which means automating jobs out of existence, exporting jobs, cutting wages and laying off workers. But then these workers can't buy as much, which makes the market even more competitive, which means companies have to slash costs even further.