Those who persist in the delusion that a politicized society is preferable to a free one keep making ridiculous attacks on the non-politicized economic system — i.e. capitalism. In the letter below, Don Boudreaux demolishes one such attack, made by a professor who thinks that because poverty hasn’t disappeared, capitalism must be blamed. My only quibble with Don’s letter is that the US would be much closer to the elimination of poverty if it weren’t for the fact that the US has been drifting away from capitalism and into the politicized economy of crony capitalism for many decades.

Editor, Chronicle of Higher Education

Dear Editor:

Terry Eagleton writes that "There is a sense in which the whole of Marx's 
writing boils down to several embarrassing questions: Why is it that the 
capitalist West has accumulated more resources than human history has ever 
witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty, starvation, exploitation, 
and inequality?" ("In Praise of Marx," April 11).

Where is this "capitalist West" of which Prof. Eagleton speaks?  In the U.S. - 
surely one of history's premier capitalist western nations - poverty, 
starvation, exploitation, and inequality as these were suffered for millennia 
upon millennia until the 18th century, are today nearly totally eliminated.  The 
poverty that does exist in the U.S. in 2011 is relative - in the sense that I, 
on my college-professor's salary, am poverty-stricken relative, say, to Alec 
Baldwin or Barbra Streisand.

Only the tiniest fraction of Americans today lives without solid roofs over 
their heads and solid floors beneath their feet, and even THEY don't starve to 
death. The poorest Americans have life expectancies at least double those of 
crested and landed nobles before the industrial revolution.  These same poor 
Americans are immensely better fed, clothed, housed, entertained, medicated, 
educated, and hygienated than were the vast majority of their (or anyone's) 
ancestors.  These facts - along with the additional one that capitalists must 
continually innovate (typically for mass markets!) in order to continue earning 
their riches - make claims of widespread "exploitation" in capitalist countries 
ludicrous.

Prof. Eagleton is like the lawyer who, upon seeing a gifted physician restore to 
complete health a patient who had been machine gunned, beaten, burned, and 
thrown from the roof of a skyscraper, accuses the doctor of malpractice because 
the patient has acne.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University