Reply #40: As a tool that can be directed? Not really.

[Unvanguard]

You can limit or expand its domain, and thus influence its effect according to the purpose for which you intend to use it, but you can't control it the way you control a hammer.

Edit: And even the power of limitation is restrained with capitalism, because the sorts of power awarded to those at the top of the class structure allow them to control, or at least influence heavily, the other societal power centers.