America is a capitalistic society, of which, most Americans are proud to be a part of it, believing that such is the best way for economic prosperity. To a certain degree, this must be true, because America has the biggest economy in the world, and is in aggregate, also the richest nation in the world. However, the unfortunate part of this capitalistic picture is that those that are its biggest beneficiaries are the extraordinarily rich few, who often are also quite powerful; of which, the downside of the structure of capitalism in its application as practiced in America, has left an incredibly high amount of people in this a nation of massive wealth, absolutely impoverished, without hope, and destitute.
Those that are the truest believers in capitalism, make it their point to sell their belief to the public that the failure of all those that are lacking in good education, good healthcare, safe neighborhoods, and opportunity, has little or nothing to do with capitalism, but instead has a lot more to do with governmental malfunctions along with governmental misallocations, as well as a corresponding lack of effort and pluck by those that have little or nothing. In other words, what poor Americans lack, is good character; of which, if these unfortunate people would only just embrace the great opportunity and freedom that American enterprise offers to everyone, than they too, would be members in good standing, of material success.
What capitalism biggest fans don't bother to say or to admit to -- is that in so many business enterprises that capitalism is a part of, that the secret of their success, has a lot more to do with the successful exploitation of their customer base, accomplished by their general cleverness in carrying this task out, as compared to offering a fair product or service at a fair price. In other words, America seems to accept the premise that products and services should be sold within the context of what the market will bear, and need not thereby overly concern itself with what the costs are internally to a given company, be they large or be they small. In a truly competitive environment, that might well seem acceptable, since companies with high gross margins, would sooner or later thereby be susceptible to competitors undercutting them on price or through other relevant factors; however, what has occurred in American free enterprise instead, is that as industries have become more and more consolidated, that this corresponding lack of competition, has left the way open for those few winners of such, to subsequently exploit that advantage to their material benefit, and to therefore extract more in money and profit from the general public.
In point of fact, capitalism as practiced at the highest levels is often very much about companies doing everything in their power to skew laws, taxes, rules and regulations to favor them and to subsequently damage or to close thereby the door on all other potential rivals; thereby providing these companies with the ready ability to sell their products at a higher price point, and to reap the windfall profits thereof. The results of this practice of capitalism can be readily seen in the wealth gap that is so great, that as Bernie Sanders stated, "The wealthiest three families now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country." That in a nutshell is proof positive that capitalism as implemented in the United States is fundamentally flawed and thereby seriously in need of being corrected or amended.