In the shadow of recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran—operations launched under President Trump in early 2026 to dismantle nuclear sites, ballistic missiles, proxy networks like Hezbollah and Hamas, and naval capabilities—the familiar chorus from leftist media and activists has risen once more. They frame this not as a necessary defense against state-sponsored terrorism, but as the desperate thrashing of “American capitalism” in crisis.
The same narrative recycled itself after 9/11, when Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza took to the streets in celebration—handing out candy, chanting in joy, but while the media reported about the Gaza invasion they skipped the reality of what Palestinians think about the U.S. Today, the pattern holds: ignore Iran’s decades-long funding of Hezbollah (hundreds of millions annually), Hamas (over $100 million yearly in recent estimates), and other proxies, and instead blame “capitalism.”
Iran has been the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism since 1984, channeling oil wealth not into its people’s prosperity but into rockets, militias, and regional chaos. Threats extend even to Iranian operatives inside the United States. Meanwhile, the regime’s theocratic grip has dragged the country backward: compulsory hijab enforced by morality police, the 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini sparking “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests met with lethal crackdowns killing over 35000 people, and women stripped of basic freedoms. Afghanistan under the Taliban offers a parallel horror—domestic violence effectively legalized, girls barred from education, society hurled centuries into the past. These are not systems of progress; they are engines of misery.
Contrast this with capitalism’s record. For decades, American capitalist dynamism has funded global benevolence on an unmatched scale. In fiscal year 2023 alone, the U.S. disbursed roughly $72 billion in foreign aid—the world’s largest contribution—supporting health initiatives that have saved millions of lives through malaria control, HIV/AIDS programs, and humanitarian relief. From medical breakthroughs to disaster aid, these resources, generated by free markets and innovation, have uplifted billions worldwide.
Socialism, by contrast, delivers the “equal sharing of miseries” Winston Churchill so incisively described in 1945: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Pure socialist experiments—North Korea’s famines, Venezuela’s hyperinflation and exodus, Russia’s post-Soviet kleptocracy—have collapsed under corruption, dictatorship, and inefficiency. Even self-proclaimed socialist states survive only by adopting capitalist mechanisms. Bangladesh, often mislabeled as socialist, has grown through market reforms and private enterprise, yet still grapples with corruption that plagues any system lacking accountability. Capitalism’s superiority shines brightest in the data of nations that embraced it.
The reforms in the People’s Republic of China under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, such as special economic zones, private incentives, and market opening, transformed an impoverished agrarian nation into the world’s second-largest economy, lifting over 800 million people out of extreme poverty. India’s 1991 liberalization ended the “License Raj,” unleashing growth that swelled GDP from under $200 billion in 1980 to more than $4.1 trillion by 2025, integrating it among the top five global economies. Vietnam’s Đổi Mới reforms since 1986 followed suit, blending communist governance with capitalist dynamism to achieve tiger-like expansion. Across the developing world—from Ethiopia’s market openings to Eastern Europe’s post-communist transitions—countries pivoting toward capitalism have seen surges in innovation, efficiency, and living standards. Patents, technology, and GDP per capita soar where markets reward risk and creativity; they stagnate under central planning.
Terrorism, funded by regimes like Iran’s, does the opposite: it destroys infrastructure, deters investment, and crushes individual liberty.
Capitalism builds—factories, schools, hospitals, and freedoms. It has driven the greatest poverty reduction in human history, with global extreme poverty rates plummeting as market-oriented globalization spread in the 1990s and beyond. Even today, despite recent slowdowns, the trajectory traces back to the incentives of private enterprise, not state coercion.
Critics decry inequality under capitalism. Churchill acknowledged it as a “vice,” yet one paired with blessings that raise all boats. Socialism’s “virtue” levels everyone down to shared poverty and repression. Iran’s women risk arrest for unveiling; capitalist societies empower them to lead companies, governments, and movements. Afghanistan’s girls are denied classrooms; capitalist nations send them to universities and boardrooms.
The choice is stark. Leftist campaigns that equate self-defense with exploitation ignore this truth: capitalism, for all its imperfections, has delivered unprecedented prosperity, innovation, and freedom. Terrorism and its theocratic enablers offer only regression and fear. History, economics, and human dignity affirm it—capitalism is not merely better. It is the path forward.
Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole
The image accompanying this article was taken by Sue Lowry for the Magellan Travel Agency.
