It can. One could argue capitalism was designed to avoid pillage and plunder and to be a system by which a modern meritocracy replaces the Neanderthal stick.
The problem is that we (in the western world) deployed the wrong version of capitalism, one subjugated to oligarchic freedom and produced quite the opposite of a meritocracy. Today’s capitalism deploys an exclusivity opposite to the inclusion needed to support the evolution of mankind.
All we need to do is subjugate capitalism to real freedom, the unleashing of freedom that yields a dynamic meritocracy.
I have provided more context on capitalism in my recent answer on the state of capitalism here.
