text: Capitalism is a great way of generating wealth. But it doesn't necessarily distribute it very well. 
  
  There was an interesting series on PBS, 'Victorian Slum House' (will probably be repeated) in which they tried to recreate the lives of the very poor in London during the Victorian Era when there was no income tax, health and safety laws, minimum wage, compulsory education, etc. 
  
  In short, the government didn't 'interfere' with the workings of the free market.  
  
  The poor for the most part got poorer and the wealthy for the most part chose to ignore it or assume 'the poor' were responsible for their own plight. (A study in the latter part of the century concluded most poor people were in fact working hard. But their wages were very low.)
  
  Karl Marx, observing all this in the 19th C., concluded that capitalism would be overthrown when a tiny portion of society ended up owning virtually everything and the vast majority of the population found themselves living in abject poverty.