There are several ways to approach an answer to your last message. A historical look would perhaps be the most appropriate, but I would limit myself to the logical, simpler and to stay in the angle within which you approached the subject. We must carefully distinguish between the means and the end; the latter, as you explain it, is of a financial nature, the accumulation of abstract value, and the means are the economic agents, that they actually act individually to derive comfort or prestige (this is not the same thing!) or that they are obliged (in the case of the great majority, but that varies according to the time) by others who draw the chestnuts from the fire. With this reservation, we can admit a non-incompatibility, but we must keep in mind the distinction to be made between what is knowingly aimed at and what is the real result.
À Did
In your African example, it is not, in my opinion, capitalism, but rather a punctual rent. However, we find ourselves at the margins of the phenomenon, because there must already be a society structured by the commodity (money is not an indispensable condition) for such behavior to be observed. I have a counter-example in Madagascar, where during the flood of a small village, a woman was able to save a good amount of rice: she then shared with the rest of the inhabitants. It was more important for her to contribute to the survival of the group by restricting herself to the common portion: the interpersonal link prevailed over commodity mediation, as we know it.
Then you go on to two essential aspects. Of course capitalism is a human creation, but by a functional reversal, it then manifests itself as an autonomous entity on which men would have no hold and which conditions their behavior. It is capital that becomes the subject and the men who are at its service. I willingly concede that this is rather unintuitive in its abstraction and that is why many critics target agents specifically designated as responsible (the Jews, the banksters ...) thus making an understandable mistake, but very unfortunate.
You write:
... in the example above, I'm not sure at all that the poor borrower to survive would do differently if he were the one with stocks!
Note very relevant and agree with my point above: capitalism is above all impersonal (since it is historically replaced by links based on the uniqueness of personal relationships or within the social group, the brotherhood .. .) and there is no more essence of the rich than of the poor, it is a question in both cases of only roles within the system, roles whose distribution is indifferent.
