I agree. Visit Newport and see what was "desired" in the Gilded Age, while workers lived miserably. But that's not the essence of capitalism. One of two things was true in 1890s. Either there was enough raw material and technological knowhow to produce what poor people "desired," or there wasn't. If there was, then politics should, as it eventually did through labor laws, have seen to the wider distribution of goods and services.

It's hard for us to imagine the pre-Ford world, in which there simply was no way to mass produce ANYTHING. But as soon as Ford found a way to make cars for everyone, capitalism - via politics - found away to enable "everyone" to buy a Ford. Once mass production became possible, capitalisms' feedback loop decided what would be mass produced. There are still kinks - planned obsolescence, for example - but then, ain't nothin' perfect. That's why I said capitalism was "better" than any alternative, not that it was Edenic.