“Capitalism works” is how Ken Langone, billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, opens his new book, 
I Love Capitalism!: An American Story.

“Let me say it again: It works! And—I’m living proof—it can work for anybody and everybody…. Show me where the silver spoon was in my mouth. I’ve got to argue profoundly and passionately: I’m the American Dream.”

Last week, I had the privilege to attend the Cornerstone Macro Conference in New York. Langone’s presentation, moderated by Omega Advisers CEO Lee Cooperman, stood out as one of the highlights.

Growing up poor in Roslyn Heights, Long Island, the son of a plumber and a school cafeteria worker, Langone didn’t initially seem destined for greatness.

But like other self-made billionaires, Langone didn’t let his humble background stand in the way of his ambitions. Married with a toddler and another baby on the way, he quit a good-paying insurance position to try and make it on Wall Street—a “closed, Waspy world back in those bad old days,” as he describes it in I Love Capitalism! 

He managed to get his first Wall Street job, in institutional sales at broker-dealer R.W. Pressprich, after offering to get paid a secretary’s salary. The rest, as they say, is history.?

Since co-founding Home Depot—which employs upwards of 400,000 people and hit $100 billion in sales for the first time last year—Langone has become a prominent philanthropist.

Remember hearing recently that New York University (NYU) would now be tuition-free for all incoming med students? That was made possible not because of socialism, but because of donations from capitalists like Langone. He and his wife gave the school $100 million after learning that the U.S. could face a serious doctor shortage in the coming years.

As he explained at the conference, only capitalism creates wealth, which is then freely redistributed. Socialism creates little to no wealth and redistributes poverty. People in Venezuela, sadly, are learning this lesson firsthand, as inflation there is forecast to hit an unbelievable 1 million percent by the end of the year.