It will never work as it goes against human nature.
Not true. Until 200 years ago people were mostly controlled by a king or dictator or some sort and owned next to nothing. Common people worked all day to pay tribute to the ruler and keep their families fed. It's sad that people don't have any concept of how easy life is right now. They also don't have the guts to fight back.
The "elite" want to return to the way things were because they don't trust people to manage themselves or world resources as well as they can....and they frankly don't need most of them anymore to make the world run with robots and AI coming into wide use.
The USA and capitalism is still just a short experiment compared to all of human history. The industrial revolution required lots of bodies for manual labor, that isn't the case now which is why the "elite" want depopulation. Unless you think they just let people do nothing and "be happy".... I don't think so.