Isn’t capitalism justified by the fact it serves the “public good”?

No. As a secondary effect of allowing the creators and innovators of society freedom to create and produce, laissez-faire results in a society where progress is the norm, and the standard of living continuously rises. That capitalism serves the “public good” (properly defined as the sum of the good of all individuals) is true, though this is not its moral justification but is merely an effect of its cause: freeing the individual from the mediocrity of the collective, to live his own life as an end to himself.

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