I was really irked by this line too but in the final paragraph the author seems to mention capitalism again with less enthusiasm. I got the impression that the

I was really irked by this line too but in the final paragraph the author seems to mention capitalism again with less enthusiasm. I got the impression that the author was genuinely surprised to see that our economy is woefully bad at distributing wealth fairly. The fact that many academics still don't appreciate what a terrible social system capitalism is - even though academia is one of the only places where you can be supported as openly anti-capitalist - shows just how out of touch they are with the ills of the world around them.