>this wrecks companies and economies alike

I don't think it has to be this way, there was once more structural soundness.

A good reason to get more consistent with terminology where the capital in capitalism actually just means "other peoples' money" and everything that implies which is different when other peoples' money is not involved.

This never means that evil or greed needs to be involved in any way.

Even Mr. Wonderful is not evil or greedy except when he wants to be.

Those defects can be leveraged by capital or other resources to the same degree that beneficial characteristics could be.

Now the other resources I like to look at as simply resources.

When an entrepreneur makes a million after starting with $20,000 in wage savings that doesn't make him a capitalist to me even if he did it swimming in the same sea as capitalistic sharks, well though there can still be capitalistic lifebuoys sometimes too. They did it with their own resources, often with a rate of return which investing capitalists hardly ever get.

So as much as you would like to think of yourself as a capitalist, if you are just a wage earner or at the other end of the spectrum, a resource heir who is not deploying their resources at the time under other peoples' (hopefully) responsible management, I don't think so.

This really narrows the field since even the most capitalistic countries have only a very small percentage of citizens, especially among wage earners, benefitting the most from the direct use of other people's money, so it can drive entire financial systems to prosperity without including wage-earners.

Capitalism can be the best thing since sliced bread while still being out-of-reach for those who don't already have the resources to make it to the bread line.

It's not very much of a capitalist country if there's only a very small minority of citizens benefitting from the capitalism. Shadow of what it could be.

When a non-capitalist entrepreneur does take on funds from other people, that can turn them into a capitalist for the first time in their life. This is not always looked at this way but it can have some interesting effects.

They and their funder become capitalists together, and should have a forseeable bright future together but it's not supposed to be the same after that.

Limited runways, more consequential deadlines or milestones, new and different financial controls and more are often all normal expectations.

The requirement for good stewardship and growth of the capital as intended by the entrepreneur can sometimes best be unlike the handling of other key resources, bigger or smaller, whether cash or not.

On the other side of the coin the investing capitalist should take growing responsibility for good stewardship of the relationship with the entrepreneur that made it possible for the investment to be made in the first place. And good stewardship of backup resources if further capital deployment is intended, or to avoid the need for unanticipated capital withdrawl.

So that new coin can be utilized in the most worthwhile way possible for all concerned.

It doesn't need to grow beyond belief, but if it shrinks too much too long it's gone.

Either way financial failures can occur that would not have to happen.

So I always prefer value-added action over pure financial positioning.

That way the bigger it gets more wealth can actually be created compared to that banked, as opposed to merely taking a cut when previously existing wealth is just creatively reshuffled.