This assumes that capitalists/entrepreneurs are inherently evil, totally consumed by greed and unable to grasp the benefits that a functioning state provides for everyone, including themselves.
That is quite pessimistic view of things.
https://www.millionairesforhumanity.com/
97 millionaires signed that letter. There are approximately 46.8 million millionaires in the world. That's approximately 0.0003% of millionaires, not enough to be even considered a rounding error. Additionally, not a single billionaire has signed this letter. Meanwhile the other 99.9997% of millionaires and 100% of billionaires are hard at work at minimising the amount of tax that they have to pay.
This isn't speculation, this is lived experience. Briefly, Australia had a beautiful mining and carbon tax that significantly reduced CO2 emissions and injected millions into social services that desperately needed them. But thanks in large part to a massive lobbying effort on the part of fossil fuel corporations and their allies, the government who passed those laws were defeated in a landslide and both taxes were scrapped and CO2 emissions skyrocketed and the average person lost out. In late 2019/2020 we had the worst bushfires on record. I couldn't leave my house for literal months without a gas mask because the smog was so bad. And according to our national science agency (CSIRO, which has been absolutely gutted because science is less important than tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires), things are going to get so much worse.
They estimate that Australia will 5.1 (Celsius) degree rises in Australia. Things are going to get so much worse.
Millionaires and billionaires are inherently evil. Having that much wealth while others starve is inherently evil. Millionaires and billionaires could easily give away most (I don't know the exact number but probably in excess of 90%) of their wealth and still live extremely comfortable lives. But they don't. "But what about Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? Didn't they say they were going to give away all their wealth before they die?" Well, 1) they give away way less than they earn every year (3%-4% of their net worth every year, other billionaires give away <1% to charity) 2)
the Bill Gates foundation is hilariously corrupt, regularly giving money towards corporations that Gates owns shares in and in one particularly notable example giving money to a private school that his own kids go to 3) frankly with all the nonsense that they have pulled, I don't buy for a second their "pinky promise" that they're going to give a meaningful amount of their wealth to
actual charities.
How exactly are the countries that we live in "functioning"?
1.3 billion people are in multidimensional poverty and 734 million of them are in absolute poverty.
In 2019 it was estimated that 79% of American workers lived from paycheck to paycheck. Our Capitalist states function perfectly well for the wealthy to be sure, but these "functioning states" don't provide for "everyone" and they never have. And under Capitalism they never will.
For the sake of argument lets say that there are capitalists out there aren't totally consumed by greed. Those people will never get to the top of the rat heap. If someone has morals and is willing to leave money on the table by adhering to said morals, then they will get out-competed by someone who doesn't care about morals. People who have morals, who have lines that they won't cross for money, they will never become millionaires or billionaires (except outside of inheritance and if the heir to a millionaire truly grew a conscience they would stop being a millionaire at the first available opportunity). They will never gain the ability to bring entire nations to their heel to extend their own interests.
I am not a pessimist. If I was a pessimist, I would believe that there is no alternative to this.
