Why Is Capitalism a Failed System?

Just as one example, here is a picture of Seattle taken about 140 years ago. A caption reads, “Seattle was still a village in 1878 and contained about 3,500 people” with an average life expectancy at birth of about 42 years.

Today the city itself has a population of almost 750,000 with nearly 4 million people living in the Seattle metropolitan area. It looked like this a few years ago.

The caption from this 2015 picture says “243,995 Seattleites work downtown,” while 65,000 people live there.

Suppose someone told those 1878 residents about an economic system that, despite some problems of cheating and favoritism, would raise their standard of living by many hundreds of times. They would have cars, electric lighting and appliances, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, antibiotics, air travel, a telephone in every pocket and so many other things they could never have imagined; and the only drawback would be some income inequality. Would that seem like a fair deal?

With the typical poor person in Seattle living longer and at a higher material and health standard today than the typical person 140 years ago, why do a number of its citizens (and others around the country) think the system should be scrapped? Could it be a problem with perspective, critical thinking or economic understanding?