Just chiming in with a related personal experience of mine and how it helped form my perspective.

I’ve had a friend since high school who was always loud about being socialist. I never heard the end of it, to the point that I felt I was disliking socialist ideas not on their own merit but purely from irritation. For context, we are Americans and I grew up in poverty and she didn’t.

She ended up taking a job with a big-name tech company and accumulated so much wealth that she has vacationed lavishly in Europe every year since and bought a house in cash before age 30.

As you may already know, when you buy a house in cash the property taxes aren’t paid monthly with your mortgage payment but as a lump sum to the city once per year. So she buys this nice brand new construction house in cash and all is jolly for a while until she receives the first tax bill from the city. And what does she do? She complained to me about the taxes being too high.

The point is that most people in this world will feel warm and fuzzy about themselves if they go around making a show about how much they care for poor people (i.e. “virtue signaling”), but when it’s their turn to pay the bill they become very quiet. So at least your capitalist friend is being realistic with himself about his willingness to financially support others.