From a Wall Street Journal Editorial: The widespread popular dissatisfaction with the working of modern American capitalism may be the product of some real, objective problems in the way American capitalism is working:

1. income and wealth inequality on a scale not seen in a century;
2. the concentration of economic, cultural and increasingly political power in a class of technology leaders whose products are dissolving the bonds that keep society together;
3. the tightening nexus between business elites and the people who control the political process;
4. rampant corruption and a political establishment that doesn’t seem interested in accountability;
5. the revival, after decades of stable prices, of inflationary pressures that are pushing the cost of living to painful levels…

Inequality is a feature of capitalism and a sign of its health. It isn’t only functionally efficient but morally proper that rewards for talent, hard work, risk-taking and luck are distributed proportionately to those who possess them…But it’s also empirically obvious that the wider the inequality, the more social solidarity diminishes. At some point disintegrating cohesion produces costs…that undermine the benefits of the inequality…By almost all measures, American income and wealth inequality have been increasing sharply in recent decades and social and economic mobility falling. The New York Federal Reserve reported in June 2026 that the labor share of income—wages and salaries—fell to its lowest level in 80 years as returns to capital continue to soar. Studies of intergenerational mobility suggest the inequality is becoming embedded in what looks increasingly like a class-based socioeconomic model. The proportion of Americans earning more than their parents has dropped precipitously in the past 50 years and is expected to drop further. 

Excerpt from Gerard Baker, Socialism is the Wrong Answer, but the Questions are Real, WSJ, Aug. 10, 2026