Is Capitalism Falling Out Of Favor? New AI-Driven Research From BU’s Mehrotra Institute Says Not So Fast

In an era where “late capitalism” is regularly invoked as a sign of systemic decay and where younger generations express growing doubts about free markets, a new study from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business offers a surprising counter-narrative: capitalism, it turns out, is faring better in public discourse than one might assume.

Leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze more than 400,000 news stories from the mid-20th century to today, the two of us —both faculty members at BU Questrom and affiliated with the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute for Business, Markets and Society—set out to investigate how sentiment toward capitalism, socialism, and communism has evolved over the past 80 years.

The conclusion? Despite frequent claims that capitalism is in crisis, media sentiment toward capitalism has steadily improved, even outpacing socialism and communism in positive portrayal over time.

Given the critiques of capitalism in recent years—from income inequality to climate change—we expected to see sentiment turning downward. But what we found was the opposite. The press, over time, has actually warmed to capitalism.”

Three Systems, One Debate

To contextualize the study, it’s worth reviewing the three dominant economic systems the research analyzed:

• Capitalism, emphasizing private ownership, market competition, and profit motive with minimal government intervention.
• Socialism, where the state typically owns key industries and redistributes wealth to reduce inequality.
• Communism, advocating a classless society with communal ownership and wealth distributed based on need.

In reality, most modern economies—especially those in the West—operate as mixed economies, combining capitalist markets with social safety nets, regulation, and public goods. But that hasn’t stopped fierce ideological debates, especially as Millennials and Gen Z express disillusionment with rising student debt, housing costs, and economic insecurity.

AI Meets Historical Sentiment

To move beyond anecdotal headlines and survey snapshots, the research team used ProQuest’s TDM Studio, a powerful text mining tool that gives access to digitized content from major English-language newspapers including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal dating back to the 1940s.

They then trained a large language model to assess the emotional tone—positive, negative, or neutral—of each article that mentioned capitalism, socialism, or communism. The model detected a range of sentiments such as anger, surprise, and joy, then grouped them into broader categories to track changes over time.

What they found was eye-opening:

• In the 1940s, sentiment toward all three systems was largely negative. Capitalism received a 43% negative rating and only 25% positive, despite being dominant in the U.S. and U.K. at the time.
• By the 2020s, capitalism’s sentiment had improved dramatically, with positive ratings climbing to 34% and negative sentiment falling to 37%.
• Sentiment toward socialism and communism also saw changes, but their improvement lagged behind that of capitalism. In fact, capitalism now consistently scores 4–5 percentage points higher in positive sentiment than its ideological rivals.

The trend wasn’t perfectly linear. Favorability toward capitalism dipped during recessions and financial crises—most notably the 2008 global financial meltdown. But overall, the trajectory has been upward.

Why This Matters to Business Education

For business schools, these findings carry significant implications—particularly as they grapple with teaching capitalism’s virtues in an age of growing skepticism.

At Questrom, the Ravi K. Mehrotra Institute was launched in 2023 to tackle these exact questions. Funded by Ravi Mehrotra, a business leader and philanthropist who believes business schools must address the widening trust gap between markets and society, the Institute aims to investigate capitalism’s evolution and its role in shaping human outcomes.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, but it has historically delivered innovation, rising living standards, and choice. The question is not whether to discard it, but how to make it work better—for more people.

That framing is key for students entering MBA and business master’s programs. Many of today’s applicants are more socially conscious, more globally aware, and more skeptical of traditional business dogma than previous generations. They care about sustainability, labor rights, and ethical governance—but they also want economic opportunity.

This duality presents a challenge—and an opportunity—for business education.

“Students don’t want business as usual,” says Susan Fournier, Dean of BU Questrom. 

“They want business with purpose. Our job as educators is to show them how capitalism can be a powerful tool when combined with responsibility and accountability.”

What About Public Opinion?

It’s important to note that the BU researchers measured media sentiment, not individual attitudes. While closely related, they aren’t identical.

Pew Research and Gallup polls have shown that Americans—especially young Democrats—have grown more favorable toward socialism since the Great Recession. Still, even in those surveys, capitalism remains more popular overall, particularly among independents and Republicans

What makes the AI-based media analysis compelling is that it provides longitudinal data—a way to track sentiment back through decades where no formal polling existed. While the public may be ambivalent or divided, the press has become gradually less hostile to capitalism over time.

And in an age where media narratives shape public discourse, that’s no small finding.

Headlines vs. History

Critiques of capitalism remain loud and frequent. In recent years, The New York Times ran an op-ed titled “How Capitalism Went Off the Rails.” A Wall Street Journal review warned of “late capitalism” becoming a dominant framing in academia.

However, vocal critique does not equal collapse. There’s a difference between thoughtful criticism and total rejection. And what we’re seeing is not a mass media revolt against capitalism—it’s a call to reform and refine it.

The media’s increasingly balanced tone reflects what may be a more nuanced view of capitalism’s role in society—acknowledging its flaws while appreciating its capacity for resilience and reinvention.

Looking Forward

So, is capitalism falling out of favor?

Not yet. And perhaps not at all.

If anything, this research suggests that capitalism is in the midst of a reassessment rather than a rejection. That’s an important distinction—especially for the next generation of business leaders.

For MBA programs and the institutions that house them, this represents both a challenge and a mandate: teach capitalism not as ideology, but as a system that can evolve, that must be continually shaped by innovation, regulation, and ethical leadership.

As the Mehrotra Institute’s research reveals, capitalism’s story is still being written—and the business students of today will be among its next authors.

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Sami Karaca, PhD, is a cross-disciplinary scholar, educator, and practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of marketing analytics, artificial intelligence, and digital strategy. He currently serves as Faculty Director of the Undergraduate Analytics Program and Clinical Assistant Professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

Dr. Karaca’s research spans a wide range of topics including digital marketing, reward programs, financial inclusion, fake news, and the monetization of data. He has developed deep expertise in using machine learning and behavioral economics to study how consumers and firms make decisions in an increasingly algorithm-driven world. His work has appeared in top academic journals and public-facing platforms, including The Conversation, where his collaborative article on capitalism and media sentiment received broad attention.

Before joining Boston University, Dr. Karaca spent nearly a decade at Bogazici University in Istanbul, where he served as an Assistant Professor of Marketing, Vice Chair of the Management Department, and Founding Director of the Center for Analytics & Insights. His global academic journey has also taken him to Harvard Business School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management as a visiting scholar and research fellow.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Karaca has advised leading global companies on digital transformation, AI strategy, and data science. His advisory roles include serving on the AI Advisory Board of Arcelik A.S., as a digital strategy advisor to the CEO of the Carlsberg Group, and on the board of the Bogazici University Foundation.

A gifted teacher, Dr. Karaca has designed and delivered courses on customer analytics, digital marketing, pricing strategy, and data visualization across business schools in the U.S. and Turkey. He is passionate about equipping students with the skills to thrive in a data-driven world while helping organizations ethically and effectively leverage technology for impact.

Dr. Karaca earned his PhD in Marketing from Kellogg, an MS in Managerial Economics & Strategy from Northwestern, and a BS in Industrial Engineering with highest distinction from Purdue University.

 

Jay L. Zagorsky, PhD, is a cross-disciplinary researcher, writer, and educator who has spent over two decades investigating the dynamics of personal wealth—why some individuals become rich, others remain poor, and how people move between these financial states.

His research draws extensively from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), one of the longest-running studies of Americans’ lives. For 23 years, he served as a research scientist at The Ohio State University, helping lead and interpret this data. He also worked as a big data scientist with the Ohio Education Research Center (OERC), where he analyzed large-scale datasets to inform education policy and practice.

Dr. Zagorsky is one of the most prolific contributors to TheConversation.com in the United States, where his 115+ articles have attracted more than 5 million readers. His work has been republished by The Washington Post, Newsweek, Houston Chronicle, Quartz, Salon, and others. In addition to The Conversation, he has written for outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, and The Academic Minute. His research and commentary have been featured in thousands of media appearances, including radio, television, and print interviews.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Zagorsky has taught more than 100 university courses across business and liberal arts disciplines, covering subjects such as economics, statistics, quantitative methods, and information systems. His teaching spans large lectures and intimate seminars and has consistently earned top evaluations and multiple teaching awards. He is also the author of three textbooks—on macroeconomics, managerial economics, and business data usage.

Currently, Dr. Zagorsky has just synthesized his research into a new book – “The Power of Cash” — that presents the insights of his academic work and that of other wealth researchers in an accessible, reader-friendly format.