You claimed:

> Usually when a company sells to private equity, it is because the business is suffering from financial hardship or the current owner is unable to continue to run the business and cannot find a successor, so selling to private equity would be the least bad option.

private equity being able to offer more money for your practice when you retire than a dentist who would have continued the small practice is not financial hardship or being unable to find a successor, so please don't pretend your two comments are equivalent.

This comment is much more honest: there was room for financialization, so people did it. They were unable to find a successor who would pay more than a group of people that wanted to wring money out of their company. Gives the lie to the "selling to private equity would be the least bad option" conclusion, though.

Sure you could voluntarily sell your business at less than its market worth to help a younger dentist, but someone else with the same net worth could donate the same amount of money to help the young dentist as well. Why is the expectation of social good placed entirely on you?