Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? Some Hypotheses From a Libertarian

I just read philosopher Robert Nozick's essay where he offers several hypotheses for social scientists to test.  Read the whole thing, it's short, clear, and an easy read.  (Too bad we know that social scientists won't be eager to take up that task.)

Here is an excerpt:

Is it that capitalism is bad, unjust, immoral, or inferior, and that intellectuals, being intelligent, realize this and therefore stand in opposition? This would be the straightforward answer. The straightforward explanation of why we believe something is that it is true, and we somehow know it. But even those of you who are not convinced, as I am, that capitalism is a morally justifiable system, perhaps can suspend your disbelief in it, at least temporarily, to follow me in my quest for an explanation of the intellectuals' opposition. For even if the intellectuals are right in their opposition, the explanation of their opposition need not be the straightforward one. Though what is believed is true, it might not be believed because it is true; the explanation of why it is believed need not or may not involve its being true.

There is reason to think that something more is at work in the opposition of intellectuals to capitalism than merely their realizing the truth about capitalism. Let me describe to you an experience I have often had. A particular complaint is made about laissez-faire capitalism, perhaps that it leads to monopoly, or pollution, or too much inequality, or involves exploitation of workers, or despoils the environment, or leads to imperialism, or causes wars, or thwarts meaningful work, or panders to peoples' desires, or encourages dishonesty in the marketplace, or produces for profit and not for use, or holds back progress to increase profits, or disrupts traditional patterns to increase profits, or leads to overproduction, or leads to underproduction, or whatever. Someone makes the particular complaint, and I discuss it in detail, probing it, showing its unexamined assumptions-mistakes of fact or logic or history or economics. In any case, the person concedes my particular point or at least becomes unsure about the validity of his or her particular complaint against capitalism. Does the individual then change his or her mind? No, the individual drops the point, and quickly leaps to another. "But what about child labor, or the racism built into it, or the oppression of women, or urban slums, or in simpler days we could do without planning but now things are so complex that ... ,or advertising seducing people into buying things or.... " And so it goes. We painstakingly discuss this next complaint and once again it cannot be sustained. The person leaps to yet another point, "But what about. ..?" Point after point after point is given up. One complaint after another is dropped. What is not given up, though, what is not dropped, is the opposition to capitalism. For the opposition is not based on those points and complaints, it does not depend on them and so it does not disappear when they do. There is an underlying animus against capitalism. This animus gives rise to the complaints, it generates them. The complaints rationalize the animus. After some resistance, the particular complaint will be dropped and, without a backward glance, tenfold others will surge forward to perform the same function, to rationalize and justify the intellectual's animus to capitalism.

[...some hypotheses...]