Capitalism works. It has brought more prosperity and well being to more people than any other system. It's therefore more than a little strange that it's so hard to find people in the media or in academia who will say so. Instead, they're in love with Marxism, because it's ... well, because ... damn, I don't know why. It's not as if there isn't plenty of empirical proof out there for which system works better. It's not even as if it's better to be an academic or a journalist in a non-capitalist system (in fact, it's quite the opposite). What got me thinking about this is an article I read Feeble Critiques: Capitalism's Petty Detractors by Jagdish Bhagwati.

I tell the story about how my radical Cambridge teacher, Joan Robinson, was once observed many years ago agreeing with the mainstream Yale developmental economist Gus Ranis on the subject of Korea’s phenomenal growth. The paradox was resolved when it turned out that she was talking about North Korea and he about South Korea. Now, more than three decades later, we know who was right.

Nevertheless, human beings have a remarkable capacity to deceive themselves, and to believe things contrary to all evidence.
(Via Transterrestial Musings)