Political Memes

What people "call" capitalism, vs. what capitalism actually is are two different things. According to wikipedia:

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

Communism is... a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.

Socialism is... social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

So if you went to a public school in the USA, that's socialism, even though it's a primarily "capitalist" society in which private schools also can exist. Similarly the post office is heavily subsidized, so sending via Fed-Ex would be capitalism, vs. using the USPS is socialism, but both exist side-by-side in the USA, which is called "capitalist", even though much of what was considered "great" about it derived from the socialism components within it. The line between the two is a bit blurry.

Plus when you bail out a large corporation, it's one-way socialism where society accepts the burdens to pay the company when times are bad, yet also one-way capitalism where society does not directly reap any of the profits when times are good. That's a bastardization of all systems, and the only way I can think of to describe it is not capitalism, nor socialism, but "corruption". And it blurs the line still further, b/c it too exists in supposedly "capitalist" countries, but is not a defining feature of capitalism. Though it does create a lot of the hardships within capitalist nations.

A small mom-&-pop shop like a family restaurant is an example of capitalism, but I don't think that's evil to allow such a thing?

Suffering is produced by corruption, greed, large corporations that are indifferent to its workers, etc. A lot of that tracks along with capitalism - e.g. when you allow money to substitute for votes - but those things are not the defining features of capitalism, nor are all instances of capitalism evil, like those small mom-&-pop shops that just want to make food and through that, a life for themselves.