I think the real issue is systemic. Corporations are organisms in the larger ecosystem and that is where the real conceptual fallacy rests.
We are linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, reciprocal, feedback driven reality, so while we assume capitalism to be synonymous with a market economy, the difference is that while markets need money to circulate, in order to function, people tend to see it as the signal to extract and store. Requiring ever more to be added and ever more metastatic methods of storing what has been extracted.
Most money/notational value amounts to a contract, where the asset is backed by a debt. So in order to store the asset, similar amounts of debt have to be generated.
One method is squeezing the money flowing through the general economy, requiring it to run on debt and drawing that saved money back into circulation. Which tends to create a centripetal effect, as positive feedback pulls the asset to the center of the community, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. Given the financial system is the value distribution mechanism of the community, this is analogous to the heart telling the hands and feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get. The Ancients would use debt jubilees to reset this dynamic, but we've managed to keep one step ahead of it with everything from colonialism to technology.
Another method is having the government as debtor of last resort. One would think it should be overwhelmingly obvious that the capital markets could not function, without the government siphoning up trillions in effectively surplus money, but that's one large elephant being totally ignored. It seems the secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
Econ 101 says money is both medium of exchange and store of value, but that overlooks that a medium is dynamic, while store is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, the hall closet is a store. If the average five year old can learn the difference, are economists really that blind, or just selective?
The functionality of money is in its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. It really is a public utility. A contract between the individual and the community, not a commodity to be mined from the community and the economy.
The fact is there isn't sufficient investment potential to individually save the amounts of wealth we need to feel secure, but we do save for many of the same reasons, so that eventually we will have to redevelop the idea of the public commons as a store of community value. This isn't socialism in the sense of everything being public proerty, but the realization that a healthy society needs both public and private spheres, like a house has family and personal spaces.
Not that banking can be a direct function of government, as politicians live and die on the hope they inspire, so printing money has always been a fallback when everything else is failing. Like the central nervous system and the circulation system, they serve different functions to the entire body.
As it is, the wealthy and powerful are not so much the forces driving this, as those riding the wave. It goes into how we all function in society. It has to be a two way street for everyone. Rights and responsibilities cannot be totally separate.
