Stephen Hawking's final words to the internet:

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. Wrong wrong wrong.

The most charitable view of your statement is that it suffers from binary thinking tunnel vision.

It is a narrow-minded fallacy to think that capitalism can only be parasitical. Robber baron capitalism is parasitical. The tremendous wealth & income inequality we have in the US and some other countries now (getting worse) is parasitical and unsustainable. The US system is not the only system of capitalism in the world.

Capitalism is very efficient at creating jobs and employing people and advancing many aspects of society. Capitalism is very efficient at distributing goods and resources to where they are needed. Command economies fail. Communism fails since "from each according to ability and to each according to need" fails to provide adequate incentives for advancement.

DU is capitalist (private and owned) and employs several people. It is good.

The problem with capitalism-on-steroids is that it over-rewards the top 1% and 0.01%, people who don't need extra incentive, at the expense of the bottom 47% who are people who need support and incentives. Therefore capitalism must be well-regulated, well-monitored, subject to progressive social goals, and operating under progressive tax regimes. Byzantine tax systems need to be truly simplified by turning amorphous invisible tax breaks into publicly visible subsidies.

On the side of socialism, more and more studies are showing that if you provide people with guaranteed housing, guaranteed basic income, and guaranteed health care, then the outcome actually saves money and makes the society much more productive and harmonious. People with an address (not homeless) are much more likely to find work. People use less emergency services. There is a reduction in the cost of policy and a reduction in crime (poor/homeless people are also likely to be victims of crime). People have better health and that means there is less drag on the economy for health care and they are more productive and more able to help each other (the elderly and disabled for example). Note: guaranteed basic income subsumes social security and welfare.

Pure systems of any kind are bad, be it capitalism (robber baron capitalism), socialism (communism when purest), fascism (corporate-statist-bureaucratic elitism), dictatorship (of despots or proletariat or peasants or monarchs or whatever) or anarchism (dog eat dog).

A hybrid of capitalism and socialism is the only way to go. At least until humanity is so highly developed that something approaching nearly pure enlightened self-interest is feasible (community and socially and globally connected).

When all is said, Stephen Hawking's point about the distribution of benefits is very much correct.