Whaddya Mean: Capitalism is not Working?

American Thinker ^ | 10 Nov, 2025 | Christopher Chantrill

[MtnClimber]

Peter Thiel tells Shawn Fisher at the Free Press that:

Capitalism is not working for a lot of people in New York City. It’s not working for young people.

Dear me. Here we have the whole world fainting because Tucker Carlson dared -- dared -- to interview Nick Fuentes, and Peter Thiel says something completely off-the-charts wacko. Capitalism not working? Capitalism works every minute, every hour, every day, for everyone, whether you like it or not.

What is not working right now is the mountain of government programs and regulations and left-wing conceits that are piled high on capitalism like spices from India on an overloaded camel. As with most animals, when you cruelly overload them, they start to groan with pain.

Surely Peter Thiel knows this.

Another thing that is not working is the famous liberation of women that began a couple hundred years ago with the world’s First Feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Only last week I wrote a deeply philosophical Substack post “Our Woman Problem,” on the subject. I say that “women’s liberation” has not liberated women, but rather enslaved them. Women don’t like it, and they are complaining about it. But they have no idea that they are enslaved. They complain, I imagine, because like George Eliot’s Lisbeth Bede, they complain in order to be soothed.

So maybe that’s why the most enthusiastic Mamdani voters in New York City seem to be young women college graduates with woke studies degrees. Maybe they are just complaining in order to be soothed.

Now I wrote a couple of weeks ago at AT that the tech lords, with Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel in the vanguard, are presently engaged upon a Tech March Through the Institutions with consequences that nobody can yet foresee. Let’s just say that the tech lords were present

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: leftism

[MtnClimber]

The Peter Thiel support of JD Vance is something that needs scrutinizing.

[Brian Griffin]

4-unit NYC building

Mr. Yuppie - $4,000/month
Mrs. White - $800/month
Mrs. Black - $900/month
Miss Alt - $700/month

What might happen if Mr. Yuppie and others like him could get $1,600/month apartments?

[struggle]

Just make capitalism so that huge mega-corps can’t bribe the government anymore.

[TexasFreeper2009]

socialism is what is failing them, they might actually try capitalism before they knock it.

[AndyJackson]

There is a gulf of difference between capitalism and crony capitalism. DOGE document how deep and wide crony capitalism runs through our system. Under capitalism you pay for your college education which is offered at an affordable price for degrees that are valuable. In the old days you could get a job where your employer would pay you part time to study part time for a degree that was valuable to the employer.

The exploding financial debt bomb for useless degrees and mega salaried academic jobs is crony-capitalism.

[econjack]

I saw this article, too, and wondered how he reached that conclusion. Capitalism may not be the best economic system in the world, but it’s light years ahead of whatever is in second place.

[Qwapisking]

Interesting there’s always talk of crony capitalism but never crony socialism. Why is that?

[cuz1961]

What Peter wants

Is a theocracy under the boot of his envisioned AI god.

I.e the BEAST.

[cuban leaf]

American thinker is my absolute favorite source of political and cultural commentary. Another great article.

[omni-scientist]

Maybe because it’s understood that cronyism is integral to the practical implementation of socialism.

[DeplorablePaul]

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
― P.J. O’Rourke

The failure of socialist income redistribution schemes is on display right now. This is a teachable moment. Maybe if we explain patiently that the free market is a rational system to set prices, people will see the light and embrace the genius of capitalism? Nahhhhh....

[spetznaz]

Exactly! It is not even about defending capitalism. It is simply about the fact that it is leagues better than anything else.

[mjp]

Capitalism is the harmony of rational self-interest and not exploitation, oppression, or alienation

[Opinionated Blowhard]

First of all, the New York housing market is not capitalism in the least. But putting that aside, there is a good point here. Capitalism does not work in the housing market in the sense that capitalism will price the poor out of desirable housing markets. The classic case is coastal property. There is only so much of it. Same with Manhattan condos and apartments. It forces poor people to move.

[Paal Gulli]

Again they confuse “capitalism” with a free-market economy.

Innywho, it bears mention that the socialists/communists (as if there’s a difference) spent almost the whole of the 20th Century trying to convince us that a free-market economy could never succeed.

However, in the 21st Century, they’ve changed their sales pitch. Now they’re claiming that the free market was TOO SUCCESSFUL in the 20th Century, and the planet is overheating as a consequence. And nothing can save us from ourselves except except returning to a 19th Century lifestyle.

[gundog]

The sine qua non of Marxism is the failure of capitalism. They must sabotage, hamstring with regulation, exaggerate “inequities” and shout that failure from the rooftops. Never mind that they have nothing but a history of failure with socialism.

[Unassuaged]

Every Billionaire needs a horse in the race.

[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

Capitalism isn’t the primary economic model in the US anymore - it’s something we might call “financism” where inflationary money-printing creates huge pools of funds chasing assets. Once assets are purchased, the goal is to slash costs and raise prices so you can sell it to the NEXT private equity (PE) firm at a profit.

Key point about this: nothing is actually created, unlike in capitalism where the capital spent produces new goods & services (i.e. true GDP).

[dfwgator]

Capitalism - Oingo Boingo

There’s nothing wrong with capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry

There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask, I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice

So tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution, bringing down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby

If it ain’t one thing, then it’s the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone’s brother
I’ve got to tell you, you’re a pain in the ass

You criticize with plenty of vigor
You rationalize everything that you do
With catchy phrases and heavy quotations
And everybody is crazy but you

You’re just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work

And now you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses, whoever they are
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain you dumb f__k?