"Capitalism is killing the planet - it's time to stop buying into our own destruction."- The Guardian

The more disordered modern society becomes the more loudly we hear a common diagnosis: capitalism wanted this.

Blaming capitalism has long been the status quo for the political left, who over the decades have expanded from the Marxist critique of economic inequality to blaming capitalism for eating disorders, serial killers, declining libidos, misogyny, and just about anything else they can come up with. Increasingly, blaming capitalism has gained popularity on the right as well, who credit it with the decline of the nuclear family, community, religion, and all sorts of moral and cultural decay.

"Capitalism wants you to be sick," "capitalism wants you to hate," "capitalism wants you to be weak," "capitalism wants you to hate your body," "capitalism wants you burned out, silent, and disconnected," "capitalism wants you to save less and spend more," "capitalism wants me dead."

According to its critics, capitalism is the ghost in the machine pulling strings to make our lives worse, all for its own profit. But that's a philosophical error—a refusal to distinguish between a system and its inputs. Our civilization does have serious problems. The critics are right to say so. But capitalism isn't responsible for society's flaws; we are.

Contrary to the Steven Pinker thesis, not everything is getting better.