I feel there's a lot of precisions to be made as we seem to share similar views but at different degrees.
Not always. I'll get back to this situation after I have more time to write.
BUT - I will say this is more a result of how individual companies are set up, not necessarily a direct result of capitalism.
Freedom of decisions and budgetary functions. If every company has total control over how they manage the workforce, the weakness (society wise) is more of a continuous limitation in number of hours spent to build (for example) a TeeVee set. Then, the amount of reasonably highly qualified and PAID personel to produce it. Then, comes the salary margins allocated to be reasonably 'balanced' for the corporate needs & estimations.
Knowing this... the "standard" of industrial activity (unless being evaluated in neutral objectivity) is left into the hands of profit mongers. Unionized employees have some negotiative power that favors people rather than ownership (this term is very important, in my reasoning). All who work to produce goods should benefit for performance & task conditions, but they don't.
As an example, Minimal salary by Law in Québec stands at about 9$/hour. That makes 18,720 per year IF someone is lucky enough to work steadily 40 hours for 52 weeks. Taxed twice by Federal/Provincial state, consuming taxes, house, transport, food & necessary living means *excluded*.
Poverty line revenu is at a whopping 23,000.
Now, comes in my corporation X which offers the tricky four days week (or less, btw) and isn't in any obligation to hire more than, say, 0.5 person to do the job. Part time, seasonal, etc.
Net gain (in profits) whatever amounts of NOT paid people.
It becomes even more complex when you consider the mechanics of consumeurism against available spending money... but, i guess i'll leave at that. I'm sure you understand that what the population doesn't have any control over, abuse can and does happen.
Wanna know why?
Yes, I do truly wanna know why you spouted some crazy scenario. It kinda broke down when you mentioned the alarm clock.
. . . and capitalism isn't to blame for our education working the way it does. We threw away treating the education system as a capitalist system a long time ago. These days, it's mostly a government run program.
What if i throw in Houses in that dynamic of peoples' personal or family "ambitions" supplied by minimal revenus?
If workforce incomes are taxed to maintain such commonly managed system of entirely & finalized education, though. This is where, for example, Germany beats the crap out of anyone else. Highest levels of education are provided by state, free. US & Canada (etc) on the other hand, are enforcing youth (and parenthood, also) into debts (bank loans with HUGE interest rates) to get what many consider minimal skills of College or even, University to fit the demands of a working market expecting performance.
Luxury by capitalism feeds the wrong accounts instead of population that contributes.
What exactly are "wrong" accounts, and why do you think they are wrong?
What would be the "right" accounts in your mind?
How do you think the accounts should be fed?
To make it an exaggeration and extremely generalized, Henry Ford(s) through generations worth of Capitalized profits.
Assembly line workers.
By reasonably higher salaries.
They both militarized enough to justify spending on fear. Pollution through hyper-industrialization and generalized hikes in consumeurism as people got plenty of cash to waste from working. It's called a Bubble in economic terms. That's the Cold War balloon.
How exactly does this explain why the USSR collapsed and the USA didn't?
How does this make it an illusion, as you claim?
Last I checked, despite the conditions you describe our economy is functioning. Maybe not 100% smoothly, but it's functioning.
More nukes, more submarines, more Navy, More AirForce, More tanks, More guns... which ALL needed people to build (society) and maintain (radar operator X & gangs).
Cuz, if you build upon positive progress & optimal standard of livings for ALL (even if paradoxal - to use the military analogy; Don't leave anyone behind), it isn't.
Functional & fairness, are too different to justify poverty when taken into context.
Better known as profits through capitalism in a Bubble.
How is being profitable a bad thing? Gotta make money somehow.
Money isn't made, it's spent (Gotta share or distribute it) or kept (Gotta buy that luxury item since my neighbors bought it too -- eventually, somehow, the trap mentioned earlier).