I find for the most part that the people at the top who do in fact benefit are more often than not very well connected to gov't and the benefits it bestows. I differ on lumping ALL RICH into the same class as not all so directly benefit from gov't. I would contend to achieve super wealth status is all but impossible outside a very cozy connection to an interventionist state.
Many so-called rich, (define rich BTW) who may own small or medium size businesses are JUST AS MUCH AT RISK, maybe more so, from the State on behalf of the Super connected rich as any of us are from having our own wealth exploited away by these same political and economic forces.
In our own UPS world, how does the draconian safety rules imposed on conveyor equipment benefit UPS and FedEx while acting as a huge cost barrier to potential upstart competition who might want to enter the same market? A lot of the guarding rules for conveyors is pure BS and does nothing for safety yet it raises the cost if one has to build all new infrastructure to enter the game as competitor. Thus how the State and it's crony capitalists act to crush a real free market. I never take serious the whining and crying of UPS about OSHA when I know they more often than not cry, "please don't throw me in the briar patch!"
You think worker own cooperatives aren't more available because they fail or is it because regulation, especially tax law and lending law make the hurdles much larger as opposed to a conventional shareholder corp. with Wallstreet as the true middle man? Why did even UPS, an
employee owned company also caved in to the economic demands of Wall Street? How many UPSers like me regret that day we went public even though that single action greatly increased our net worth?
And you didn't think worker cooperatives and worker own companies weren't Free Market? Did you ever consider who is defining the term and how they benefit through language propaganda and not by action?