I had a discussion yesterday with guy who retired as a multi millionaire at 49 (15 yrs ago). He was a pharmacist who got into sales for a large pharmaceutical company right after he graduated.
He was extolling the wonders of capitalism. I pointed out to him that there is no such thing as true capitalism in the US. What the US has is crony capitalism and a totally corrupt financial system.

Professor Cipolla's "5 Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" -

[google.com]

I have just opened my emails and contained in one from the Victorian Trades Hall Council is an appeal for volunteers and money for Victorian Bushfire Relief. Interestingly it is stated that relief agencies have been overwhelmed with donations of personal items such as clothing and therefore money is requested.
Here are the two links:

[weareunion.typeform.com]

And

[communityenterprisefoundation.com.au]

Whilst sympathetic to the plight of many, in sceptical mode, I ask if this volunteering of labour and money is in fact assisting the economics of stupid people, insurance companies and governments particularly right wing governments intent on union bashing ones. Is this yet more proof of the shoring up of the premise espoused in the above article posted by @William_Mary?

For 50,000 years Australian aboriginals have survived in a frequently harsh unforgiving climate. During that time controlled burning of the bush by them prevented the devastation that I recently read has devastated an area the size of Italy and is still burning.
Finally a corrupt godbothering Prime Minister stating more prayers are the answer is pretending to throw some money at the people who have been burnt out. It does not answer the inherent Australian problem of expectation of building anything without a solid foundation and failure to recognise that for progress to be made all citizens have to be enabled to gain the same progress. For example private property owners have money thrown at them to install solar energy plants. People who do not own property are not given the same advantage for free electricity.

$$$ are not the only measure of wealth. Australian aboriginals traditionally do not have personal ownership & therefore have no concept of theft. The concept of the trading cooperative devised to help workers defeat employers and private company exploitation only fails when individual members wish to gain greater advantage for themself or their family over other members. The latter being one reason for intertribal warfare amongst Australian Aboriginals.
Some years ago the socialist government under Kevin Rudd to avoid the devastation of the recession caused by the American sub prime mortgage failure paid every adult citizen $1000 to spend as they chose. Australia I believe was one of the few countries to not be badly affected.

It makes sense. Competition is at the heart of capitalism. Sharing or caring or sympathy is not inherent to competition. It's the exact opposite. Your opponent is your enemy. I don't know about you, but if I have an enemy, I'm not compassionate towards them. Capitalism is inherently selfish and aggressive. You're always trying to "beat" someone. You want that raise? Promotion? Need to make your quarterly goals? Need to take over that top spot for market share for your company? You want to see your enemy fail. The rich and powerful always want more of each. It's their drive, otherwise they wouldn't be rich and powerful.

Fully agree.