If you’re so rich, why are you so ... so much against the system in which you grew rich?

That is a legitimate question when you talk with certain people. People like George Soros, billionaire. And Ted Turner, billionaire. And Warren Buffet, billionaire. And Bill Gates, billionaire. And various movie stars, millionaires.

The list of such people is long. They have made a lot of money. They did so because they made the most of our capitalist system. Now that they have the money they bitch about that system.

Each of the men above swipes at the system, badmouths it. Movie stars berate it and kiss Castro’s hem. Soros seems to hate the system. So does Turner. And last week Bill Gates told a group of big time economists that capitalism is failing much of the world. I hope they are not so blind as him.

Bill Gates, can you not see the billions - yes billions - of poor people who have seen their condition improve because of capitalism? Do you not see that it is capitalism that has delivered all those Asians and Chinese to Microsoft’s doorstep? I bet you don’t sell much in Cuba and North Korea.

These men look at the world’s poor and destitute. And they conclude it is capitalism that causes the poverty and misery. It makes a lot more sense to blame the lack of capitalism for the poverty.

It makes more sense because the poorest people tend to live in the parts of the world where there is the least capitalism. It makes more sense because billions of dollars of aid over 60 years has failed to lift people from poverty.

It makes more sense because communism failed to lift people from poverty. Or if it did - before it collapsed - it did so in meager fashion. Even though the communists felt obliged to slaughter millions in vain to try to make their dismal system work.

Handouts did not work. Communism - forced sharing - did not work. Heavy socialism did not work. If you don’t believe this, read up on the history of India and China through the 20th century.

As India and China adopted more capitalist and free market ideas, voila, their people began to prosper. As many African nations spurned such ideas, their people wallowed ever deeper in the muck of extreme poverty.