What Can We Do?
We (the WENAO middle class) work directly to support the harvesting of the surplus generated by the large number of poor people in the world and funneling it into the pockets of the ultra rich. We can at the least say that this system is very unfair, with most people born into a life of desperation and grueling work, who make a very small number of people very rich.
What Is The Nature Of This Problem?
The main question to answer first - Is this a systemic problem? For example, are the rules good and fair, but people are circumventing them with illegal behavior that is not stopped?
If the problem is the circumvention of the prevailing system, the solution should be to better enforce the rules. In the case of global capitalism, is rampant illegal behavior circumventing the rules to create extreme inequality?
The answer to this seems to be a clear no. Globalization is the system that facilitated the current level of exploitation and it operates on a primarily legal level. Additionally what corruption exists is not well prevented or punished, so the prevailing system itself also permits a degree of circumvention. Therefore, this problem is almost entirely systemic.
Global Capitalism Needs To Change
Through democracy and public opinion there are mechanisms to address specific cases of unfairness. This is straight up a good thing to do, however it is dealing with the symptoms, not with the disease.
The only true solution to the problem is to change the system that world operates under. Given the level of inequality and extremely short term focused environmental destruction it is fair to say that a large change is required. In other words, an alternative system.
What Is A Viable Alternative?
Marxism?
Some would have you believe that "Marxism" (or communism / socialism) is such a system, however it is 300 years old (like capitalism) and has never been successful. Surely we can do better with modern knowledge and technology.
Anarcho-capitalism?
Some believe that issues with modern capitalism are the result of welfare and regulation. In short, that we aren't capitalist enough. They believe that completely unrestrained free markets and privatization will resolve our current problems.
This doesn't match what we currently see, that the more capitalist the society the worse the inequality. The United States is the prime example of this, which has very free markets and extensive privatization, but has extreme inequality and poverty. Thus it does not stand to reason that moving further in this direction would be beneficial to society.
Worker Cooperative?
Another alternative is a system of worker cooperatives (WC), where companies are worker owned and democratically controlled. WC is focused on limiting inequality within a company, but it is not clear if it would help other forms of inequality.
WC seems like a good system if a bigger jump from capitalism is considered not possible for whatever reason since it is more of an iterative improvement, not a rethink.
Some Other System?
Depressingly, there seems to be little research into entirely new systems. A lot of interesting hybrids between capitalism and communism are possible, particularly given the amazing technology we now have.
This research should be a primary focus of humanity given the size of the issues capitalism is having.
For my part, I am working on a system based on the principles of the open-source model, open socialism. Want to help?