I'll submit my defence of the free-market as it seems to be getting the blame for everything.
Yes, you either favour a free-market or socialism. In either case, a certain top 1% of the population will have more. Only the nature and origin of that top 1% will change.
Under a free-market, where the government does not regulate, redistribute wealth, give special benefits to some groups and deny them to others, the top 1% are the best men. They are the most intelligent, assertive, risk-taking, high-energy, tenacious men in a productive capacity - since
production is the battleground on which a man must win. It is a society of
builders.
Under socialism and pure democracy, the top 1% are very different. They are the most cunning, deceitful, politically skillful, amoral, and intelligent. Their weapons are blackmail, lies, favours, and intimidation. The battlefield is personal domination and
looting. It is a society of
bandits in suits.
You can't have it both ways. Either you're in favour of a free society or a controlled society. If it is controlled, the rich and powerful will control it. They will hire (campaign contribute and
lobby for) the best and most devious politicians, who will make you believe that they are going to be 'on your side', and in favour of 'change', and they will protect local workers rights, and help 'your group'. And your vote will not be a choice as to who or 'what' is in power, it will merely be a trophy to a subset of corporations and special interest groups, awarded to those most adept and well-invested in trickery.
This is not 'corruption', this is the system running exactly as would be expected. To demand that you have a group of people issuing regulations (the government) and there be none of this 'corruption' is to demand that it can be night and day at the same time.
And calling this result 'capitalism' or the 'free market', and blaming the rich, is false. Where is this free market? No matter how much government control over the economy, any problems are always blamed on the 'free market'. The crash of 2008 was, as always, blamed on financiers and the 'unbridled free market', not on government regulations and agencies, in spite of the banking and finance industry being the most regulated industry in the country. (It's also interesting that even though these people were blamed, they have in the end profited the most). It echos leftist sentiment around the time of the USSR's collapse - that it was not communism that had caused the countries economic condition, but that 'they had failed to completely get rid of capitalism'. This is consistent with the interests of the top 1% - the democratic machine in which they are so heavily invested must never be blamed, it must be the
insufficient reach of that machine that must be blamed.
The rich will always exist. There will always be men in society with more money, more power, more sex, and more privileges. No amount of moral outrage will ever change this. It structural to our social and hierarchical species, and rooted in biology. Revolutions can only ever change the constitution through which the hierarchies are formed, and the traits that assign men to the top.
The solution to the social malaise can only come from constitutional change, and specifically a reduction of central democratic power.
Many people here claim that liberty is resulting in many of the problems we are seeing, such as moral degeneration and the loss of the middle-class. In reality, were you to restore liberty, you'd find those problems would vanish pretty quickly.