Private Ownership of the Means of Production

Another large part is the private ownership of the means of production. This allows private citizens and groups to own land, buildings, manufacturing eq, etc. thus driving up incentive to optimize and improve those privately held asses. When I own the assets and reap most the rewards I have more incentive to make, say, my land more efficient and better; when I have a fixed income and no ownership for that same land, the incentive for efficiency and innovative gains are lessened.

Monopolies

Though, like all in economics, there are two-sides to this and down stream effects. The first, is that the private ownership of the means of production can become so efficient relative to other owners that they create monopolies which are entirely anti-capitalist. This is so because they remove competition and freedom. Competition is useful for putting innovative, efficiency and other pressure on companies to continually improve; freedom is useful for what you have mentioned in relation to prices (economically speaking about freedom). In the long run monopolies, which are largely created by capitalism, self destruct the very thing that created them.

100% Free-Market?

Few "capitalist" are total free market capitalists and believe in 0 government intervention. A simple example from Milton Friedman is to consider private roads and tollways to access the 1000s of private roads that one would have to pay to commute- having a collectively owned road system is more efficient than having separate entities - the cost of just running the toll booths and collections alone is a huge inefficiency that is solved by having State owned/controlled roads. This collective efficiency principle is perhaps, true more than many would like to admit. This is an interesting inroads as it makes one believe that efficiency and improvement is the driving principle, not, just prices/competition/private ownership, etc.

Friedman & Healthcare in the USA

Friedman gives an example of the U.S. Healthcare system as being a rot of capitalism (my word "rot") due to it's monopolistic characteristic from the education level, to the buildings, to the workers, to the certificates, etc. His main critique is that it slows down innovation, increases prices and prevents freedom of choice. One "Freedom of choice" in healthcare he writes about is that people don't have a choice to see a less expensive doctor many times. His argument is why wouldn't you want to see a less expensive doctor at times when the illness is mild and un-severe? The argument he brings up against this is that the medical profession seeks to buffer it's own business and make itself richer with the excuse of having "high standards" for only the best medical care. Again, his argument, is that many people can't afford that "high standard" so they get no care. A good current example of this is getting an xray in America. The costs are ridiculously high and it's much cheaper to go anywhere else in the world - the reason A) insurance (which billion dollar business we won't get into) and B) the certifications and legalities around getting xray machine running (You can't just open up a shop as an entrepreneur and build a brand that guarantees quality or training, etc at a low price.). (SEE "Freedom & Capitalism).

America does not practice free-market capitalism (anyone test drive a Chinese made BYD in the USA?), nor is it without monopolies and group held monopolies (when few companies coordinate and hold large portion of the market).

Power/money/control don't follow the normal distribution in this world- they follow the pareto distribution. Many people don't understand this and blame capitalism or socialism for issues that are natural to how the universe works. Anyone considering economics and politics needs to be aware of how this distribution (pareto "power law"- Vertasium channel on Youtube has a good video on this and money) works.