First, the obvious that hardly anyone talks about: If you have not taken at least two good courses in economics, it’s not likely that you understand even the basics of capitalism. If you have, when you were 19 and suffering from severe testosterone poisoning (male or female) it’s still likely that you don’t understand much. There are exceptions: It’s possible to teach oneself through assiduous reading of a good newspaper such as the Wall Street Journal. I don’t know how many people do this although I did, to a large extent. It took me about ten years.

Don’t blame yourself at all. Capitalism is a topic that should be taught every year throughout junior and senior high school. It never is. Also teachers of introductory economics often do a very bad job of it for reasons we need not go into here. A few do more harm than good…