Well to be fair, Aegis, I'd welcome any opinion if someone had it, regardless of whether or not it coincided with the majority! I probably wouldn't agree with saying something shouldn't be brought up because someone doesn't agree with it! 

I often find that if one person has an opinion, you can probably guarantee that there are others who share it!

The danger, these days, especially on Internet forums, is that that old saying "To question is to be Human" has turned into "To ridicule is to be Human" where most opinions are ridiculed or abused should they be different from the majority. That whole Brexit thing was a little crazy around here when there was a split on a very serious decision, of course. You couldn't put an opinion forward online then without getting an insane amount of abuse back. Democracy? Hmm..

This is not a typical internet forum though, in that It's just me throwing out arguments for English students to practice forming a counter-argument! Not strictly a conversation about how to fix things. Not sure it's going according to plan! :)

Fair point, Susan. I live in a country where government handouts to people who simply don't want to work is far too common. 

I did watch a program about it though where I watched a family who spends all of their time together, they're surviving on the benefits given to them and don't have a lot of stress in their lives. 

I compared that to the lives a lot of other people lead where they work 9am - 5pm (if they're lucky!), spend most of their time stressed, focusing on that goal of reaching the top of the ladder one day, miss out on all their family time...and I couldn't help but ask: "who's the idiot here?" 

Both you and Aegis make good points though - perhaps there's nothing wrong with the system, but there could be some way to keep the corporations in check.

Anna, I certainly agree that not everyone is motivated by helping others, and agree they shouldn't be judged for this. I used to look favourably on my home culture due to the fact that I always found people to be polite, in general. I lived in China for some years and found myself frustrated by how everybody seemed to be out for themselves. Always queue-jumping, no letting people go before you or opening a door for someone out of politeness. Now I see that this is not really culture-related, but more so to do with population. Opening a door for someone could mean standing there for the better part of the morning near where I used to live in China. 

This said, perhaps with a growing global population and with such a huge dependency on money to acquire the things we need, perhaps this is leading to a change in the way we think, as well as the way we interact with one another? Slightly different point here I am making here I suppose but I feel it is linked. Thoughts?

Well put Guiliano, I completely agree with you - people shouldn't be judged because they have money and they may well intend to do good things with that money! I guess my original statement on this discussion didn't argue that people shouldn't have it, but rather questioning whether there should be a re-think about how it is distributed? To address the imbalance between a man owning over a dozen sports cars (I'm picturing Ronaldo...) and a kid starving in Africa, should there be measures in place? The people (us) have the power, not governments after all. Also, we now know, objectively speaking, about pollution caused by huge cattle farms and excess traffic (just 2 examples). If a rich guy decides he is going to use his private jet every week, who's to say he can't? But when it is our planet at risk, don't we all have a say?

More great points!

Is there a way to make Capitalism fair? Perhaps some kind of cap on maximum earnings for corporations and high-earning individuals (politicians, celebrities, etc.) that ensures that all earnings above the cap are put towards dealing with some of the global problems we're facing?

Or would this introduce a whole new set of issues?