"Not only does capitalism work, it is also the only economic system that works. This is Zitelmann’s core point in The Power of Capitalism. He justifies this controversial proposition by an appeal to historical experience, not abstract theory. Readers are taken through extraordinary stories of market-driven success [...[ Zitelmann, a committed ideologue, pushes his view too far. He argues, for example, that the economic reforms of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were an astonishing success. Yet that is debatable. In both cases, one consequence was a big rise in inequality. Zitelmann insists this is insignificant. [...] More egregiously, Zitelmann says the financial crisis was 'triggered by developments on the American residential property market, which had their roots in political interventions and the policies of the US Federal Reserve'. These are standard rightwing talking points but are hugely exaggerated. Similarly, his view that the correct thing to have done post-crisis was to allow mass bankruptcy and risk a severe depression was what discredited the Austrian school of economics in the 1930s. Such policies also led to the election of Adolf Hitler. Yet, for all the exaggeration and oversimplification, a good part of what Zitelmann argues is right. He is right, too, that too many intellectuals, out of some combination of envy, distaste and arrogance, wrongly detest capitalism and capitalists. [...] Zitelmann views democracy mainly as a source of demands for excessive public spending and intervention in the market. Thus, for him, democracy is a threat to capitalism."