What Critics Keep Getting Wrong About Capitalism
13th September 2026
The first thing is the assumption that there is even such a thing as ‘capitalism’.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is not a publication most would be familiar with. It is meant as a repository of overviews of big topics in philosophy broadly defined, inclusive of political theory. As such, entries added to it are unlikely to generate strong responses by the experts deeply familiar with each individual entry. Every rule has exceptions though.
Recently, Chiara Cordelli, a political philosopher at the University of Chicago, delivered her “three years in the making” commissioned piece on “capitalism.” The piece went viral. The reason that it sparked such attention is that it read to many as basically a rehash of old online talking points spewed by more refined trolls. That is unfair but there is truth to the claim that there is no smoke without fire. It is indeed a boring “takedown” of capitalism.
Let me be precise here: the problem is not that the entry is critical of capitalism. There is nothing wrong with criticising capitalism, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman or classical liberalism. The problem is that much of the discussion does not pass even a modest ideological Turing test. An ideological Turing test asks whether one can state an opposing position so accurately that its proponents would recognise the argument as their own before one proceeds to criticise it. Here, too often, they would not.
The unique characteristic of using a name for something that doesn’t exist is that everybody gets to create his own definition—and always does.