Indeed. I get more and more tired of the lazy stream of anti-capitalist sentiment leaking into HN as though all the worlds problems stem from capitalism.<p>I&#x27;ve spent a fair chunk of my career working in the Middle east or with Middle eastern companies and my wife is Chinese so we have strong connections over there as well. Both have highly centralised, statist systems with heavily restrictions on their economic markets. If you haven&#x27;t actually been there and lived under non-capitalist systems you have absolutely no idea just how utterly corrupting and venal they can get. It&#x27;s suffocating, and it&#x27;s insidious tentacles work their way into every facet of life.<p>It&#x27;s true that there is corruption in the west. Big corporations do have too much influence on politics. There are problems with the way wealth is becoming concentrated. But the issues we face pale into comparison to the problem in countries that don&#x27;t have free markets. In the west we have the 1%, but in non-capitalist states it&#x27;s more like the 0.1%. It&#x27;s the difference between systems run according to the rule of law which have some corruption, versus systems run by corruption which have some laws. Capitalism is built on the principles of property rights and economic freedom. It turns out taking those away from people isn&#x27;t a good thing after all.