The parts of capitalism that are worth keeping are the least zero sum of any other system. Unfortunately, &quot;capitalism&quot; has come to cover concepts that really don&#x27;t belong to it.<p>Culturally, mimetic envy of one&#x27;s neighbor was explicitly proscribed against in Western systems of though - &quot;thou shalt not covet&quot; - until fairly recently. So what changed? Probably TV advertising.