Whatever happened to capitalism?

One of my current pet peeves is for talking heads to use the current economic state of the West to bash the capitalist system.  What we have now is corporatism, a system in which the "big fish" in various industries have worked with an ever-more-powerful central government to skew all activity to their mutual benefit... small businesses and individuals be damned.

I'm not the only one who sees through this deliberate defamation, either:

"Let me be blunt: Our capitalist system is approaching failure.
Or, perhaps better said: Our marginally capitalist, partly-free market systems are approaching a massive collapse.
Not because of what capitalism is, mind you, but because the powers that be have bastardized it.
Capitalism can bear many distortions and abuses, but it is not indestructible.
And, make no mistake, the ‘capitalist’ system we have today has been massively corrupted, so much so that it’s sagging under the load... and will continue to do so until the proverbial straw breaks its back...

The 9 Plagues:"

It's worth reprinting here the Mussolini quote cited in the linked article:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

(click images to enlarge/save)