I seldom discuss failing capitalists because they fail at performing the character of a capitalist.

But there's where you're wrong. The "character" of a capitalist is to RISK capital to avoid the moral hazard of wasted investment. Because the capitalist takes a risk, we know he has put thought and experience into choosing a venture that he believes consumers will patronize. RISK, not profit, is what makes capitalism capitalism. That's why an analysis of capitalism must address the role of failure.

Whether failed capitalists affect markets is wholly beside the point. Risk brings discipline and a reason to organize workers who have no ability to organize themselves into an enterprise. If you can get rid of profit without getting rid of risk, go for it. But if you can't, then maybe you should consider risk as the real heart of capitalism.

I agree that you found my complaint meaningless. Otherwise, how could you have wasted so many keystrokes on that entirely irrelevant middle paragraph about cartels? Pass an anti-trust law, and cartels go away. Problem solved, without a revolution. (These comments are essentially open letters to readers. Whether any particular reader, including the author, gets the message is of little consequence. The arguments are out there for all to see.)

My hostility is on account of the millions of lives that people pretending to be Marxists have destroyed with nothing positive to show for it. Capitalism has its depredations, but it has produced prosperity and, indeed, happiness, where it has been done well. The Social Democracies of Scandinavia are capitalist, not communist. There are no happy communist countries, and there never have been. The only argument you've got left is the lame "TRUE communism has never been tried." It can't be tried any more than a four-sided triangle can be tried. So, yeah, I'm angry at Marxists. Why isn't everybody?