The parts of capitalism that are worth keeping are the least zero sum of any other system. Unfortunately, "capitalism" has come to cover concepts that really don't belong to it.
Culturally, mimetic envy of one's neighbor was explicitly proscribed against in Western systems of though - "thou shalt not covet" - until fairly recently. So what changed? Probably TV advertising.
Or "thou salt not covet" was always bullshit no one really followed and used selectively to shame people who went against the church and to shame the people into tithing, shame the rich to giving up their estates to the church, protect markets/vendors that the church has a stake in, etc.
As a student of history I find it amusing when people pick some golden period when things were better or when we look at written records uncritically. From what I can tell, human nature doesn't really change and follows the types of algorithms evolution has inserted into other animals like following game theory-like tactics.
I plead observer bias - I've noticed the difference in my lifetime. It wasn't some halcyon golden era, but I was raised by people who grew up in the Depression, and they had a certain Puritan streak about material possessions.
And TV advertising is just a hobby horse. The first practitioners were "retired" OSS officers, principally propagandists. This certainly fits my desire to avoid it for aesthetic reasons. I'd just note that Prosperity Gospel really is a thing, caused (and carried) by Cable TV.
Culturally, mimetic envy of one's neighbor was explicitly proscribed against in Western systems of though - "thou shalt not covet" - until fairly recently. So what changed? Probably TV advertising.