What we have right now is all the worst aspects of capitalism. Crony-capitalism isn't even close to describing what we have now. It is bad, it is evil, and T.H.E.Y. use the good name of "capitalism" as a mask to hide behind.
Capital used to be labor, materials, a factory building, tools… It wasn't really tied to money, until it became synonymous with currency. Under the guise of capitalism, the elite got everyone to trade everything for dollars. Right now, you can truly trade dollars for just about anything. The only thing you can't is buy your way into the elite. You have to be born into one of the thirteen families for that. (Billy Gatez wouldn't be on the Forbes top 100 list if Forbes actually listed the elite)
Currently T.H.E.Y. are promoting the rich. The Card-ass-ians are a "look what you could have" show. Something that looks like those girls might actually be making it. But the show, and that premise, are completely fabricated. The girls are not making the kind of money they spend. Or, seem to spend. It is actually just other elite lending them stuff to show off for the day.
So, now, since you can buy anything with dollars, than that is all you need start a business. Or, you lend money to someone else to start a business, and then you just buy it from them if it works out.
(This is all about capitalism. I won't be bring up free market, although the two are often used in the same sentance)
What capital, and capitalism used to mean
Capital is the things you have that can be put towards an endeavor. Things like your personal time is capital.
If you got your friends together to help build a barn, that was capitalism.
Of course the wood, nails needed to construct the barn are also capital. Tools and the land to build it on were capital too.
Building a factory is the same, just on a larger scale.
Business classes of yore were about how to raise capital. Often a lot of moving things around so that you had enough capital in one place to get the business functioning.
The problems with capitalism
The more you win, the more you win. When scales of economy got to big, it basically meant that newcomers could not compete. You have to have serious capital to even try, and those with more capital can easily handicap you.
Although the capitalism text books say that a monopoly is hard to create, it is actually quite easy. It is only hard to keep it. There is always someone bigger, or meaner, or more ruthless.
Those who have put in the effort to build a successful business are loathe to let anyone intrude on their turf. Thus, new entrepreneurs either have to start in a new field, or have some serious backers. The system does not make a place for a newcomer. In fact, the usual is to crowd them out.
How the elite protect their monopolies.
Once the elite got people to work for money, and got them hooked on consumerism, then it became easy to buy politicians. Or pay to have your family members to be elected politicians.
A monopoly has so many natural enemies, that a monopolist needs a big brother to look out for them. Thus, control the govern-cement and have them write laws insuring your monopoly stays a monopoly.
Have that same govern-cement allow you to create a corporation. Which allows you to side step all those pesky responsibilities to society. And, the crowning achievement, since a corporation has stake holders, then it is only a matter of money to take control of it.
And then came marketing and the control of media. The maintaining of illusions. Coke vs Pepsi. The same people own/control both corporations, and their "fierce" competition is all just for show, however, it keeps almost everyone else off the store shelves. Really, look at the store shelves. What is not seen there is the price tag, that distributors pay stores for the amount of shelf space. Any Johnny come lately has an extreme uphill battle if they want to enter the market.
The monopolies that are the easiest to maintain are those that do not look like monopolies.
Several things are about to shift which will make the elite and their corporations unable to compete. Further, people, once given a real choice, will choose to boycott most of the soulless, money-grubbing, polluting corporations.
If people are growing their own food on their own homestead, what does a corporation have to offer them to leave that, and work a soul crushing job? When you have your basic needs met, it takes a lot more than money to get people to work for you.
When we have distributed manufacturing, things like 3D printing, then economies of scale don't mean much. In fact, you need the opposite, to be able to continue in business when few orders are coming in. A person on that homestead can have a 3D printer sitting in their shop, and if there are no orders, they just go do something else. But a factory has a minimum they can sell and still keep the lights on.
Money may become truly unimportant.
With all of these changes, true capitalism may come back into existence. (we could think of something far better)
But, the Bigs are going to fall over. Crony-monopolisitc-debt based fiat currency backed- capitalism is dead. Be sure to stay out of the way of dying, flopping, dinosaurs.