I was thinking of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" argument, which says that capitalism is about competition, not cooperation. Cooperation happens within corporations that compete with each other, and that "cooperation" is brought about illiberally via old-school dominance hierarchies and top-down control mechanisms.

But yes, capitalism is arguably unstable and self-destructive in that it generates enormous economic inequality so that the masses have to go into debt to keep consuming even the cheap products.