Capitalism is a distasteful system rooted in one of the most base human emotions: greed. Capitalism is also the only political system that has been attempted that achieves reasonable success at balancing the needs of the poor, the middle class, entrepreneurs and the environment.
Most important: markets are what happen when you give people freedom. It is not a system that individual countries choose. It is the system that arises when you let individual people decide what they want to do with their lives.
That isn't to say that the capitalism we have is somehow natural. There are many laws in place that have erected our particular system. But without those laws there would still be the exchange of goods, some of that exchange would go across national borders and wealth would accumulate unevenly. A certain level of financial inequality is better than absolute financial equality, even in a perfect system.
So-called global capitalism is particularly natural in the sense that national borders are limits as arbitrary and man-made as you can get.
Let's pretend I have a friend at the local sandwich shop. He makes good sandwiches that I really like. He also understands that the people in the neighbourhood don't have a lot of time for lunch so we like to eat quickly and then do other things at lunch.
My friend (let's call him Dick) does well. He realizes that his combination of tasty sandwiches and fast service would be as popular in Uptown Vancouver as downtown, in the West end as in East van. So he opens several more stores. Then a few around BC. Then a few more in Eastern Canada. Then one day he thinks that the formula would work in the US and he opens a few stores there. And a few more in Europe and the next thing you know, his chain is the next McDonald's. In fact this is more or less the story of McDonald's.
Now at what point do we say that Dick became a bad guy. He started off as a good guy and took the natural growth opportunities available. He crossed borders when it made economic sense. Anti-globalists and anti-capitalists would argue that merely crossing the border and turning a small company into a big one were immoral acts.
Now I haven't given you enough details to know whether Dick is engaged in nasty activities from an environmental, health or labour point of view. Perhaps he was involved in bad activities when he was an owner of a single restaurang. Perhaps he picked up bad habits along the way. But surely his company should be judged soley on the basis of its activities and not on the fact that he it is a large company.
Large does not mean bad. Large means large. Individuals have the right to allow their corporations to grow large. Large companies perform valuable societal services. Some large corporations engage in evil acts as some small businesses do. Each should be judged on its own.
One important thing about Dick's story is that each transaction that allowed him to become an owner of a multinational country was voluntary. Nobody forced people to buy McDonald's hamburgers. Most McDonald's are less than a block away from some competitor (either local or transnational). It is easy to avoid McDonald's. But many people choose to go there because they like the food. Similarly many people choose to go to Walmart because they think the products are very reasonably priced.
Every person who works at McDonald's has a right to quit their job each and every day. Working for McDonald's is as volutary as working for your locally owned sandwich shop.
Which are more powerful, corporations or individuals? Consider the case of the McDonald's in Barbados. Barbadians didn't like McDonald's food and McDonald's went out of business. Some Barbadians are heart-broken. If McDonald's survives in Moscow or Beijing then it is because Moscovites and Chinese like burgers.
The primary virtue of the market system is that it is based upon the individual choices of millions of free people rather than centralized decision making by elites.
Question: is "capitalism" eqiuvalent to "markets"? I'm told that there is a thing called "market socialism." Does it preserve each individual's freedom to trade with whoever they like? Another unknown is anarcho-syndicalism. The "anarcho" sounds as if they would appreciate freedom but it seems that at the same time, they are against markets (at least labour markets!).