Academics live in an artificial environment that doesn't resemble the real world. How many ordinary employees have the equivalent of tenure? How many institutions can raise their prices year after year at a rate far higher than inflation and get away with it?

It doesn't surprise me that people who live in such a sheltered environment are eager to push their pet theories - most that I've met are very intelligent in their subject areas and yet quite ignorant about how the real world functions. That explains how they can ignore the dismal failures of their pet theories with a wave of the hand, like "Communism would've worked had the right people been in charge." Of course, by "the right people", they mean themselves. Bill Buckley nailed it years ago when he said something to the effect, "I'd rather be led by people chosen at random from a phone book than by the faculty of Harvard."