Asklemmy

Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?

There are many. The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc. Have all drastically improved on previous conditions, achieving large increases in life expectancy, democratization, literacy rates, access to healthcare, housing, education, and more. Read Blackshirts and Reds.

Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.

This is false. What are you specifically tracking? Freedom for the bourgeoisie?

I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it's the least bad of the terrible options.

The phrase is typically used to describe democracy, not Capitalism.

As an aside, I'm arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn't an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.

It doesn't matter what you support, the Superstructure, ie laws and safeguards, comes primarily from the Base, ie the Mode of Production.

Markets move themselves regardless of people's will towards centralized syndicates, monopolies over production. These make themselves ripe for siezure and central planning, markets themselves prepare the proletariat for running a socialized economy as they coalesce over time. This is why Marx says the bourgeoisie produces "above all else, its own gravediggers." There is no maintaining Capitalism, it eliminates itself over time.