By man’s individualist nature as a rational
being, he must work productively, trade and associate with others, and keep
what he has earned in order to survive and flourish. Therefore, man needs a
free society, so that every person can earn his living in a social environment
that abolishes physical force as a means of dealing with one another. The
abolition of physical force is the prerequisite of freedom and the reason why
the maintenance of an ethical society needs a government--to secure by law a
force-free society, leaving voluntarism as the only legal means of human
association.
It follows from man’s nature that the basic
principles of a moral society are the recognition of each individual’s right to
live and act according to the judgement of his own mind, so long as his actions
do not violate the same rights of others. The highly essentialized principles
of capitalism are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which states
that “all men are created equal, that are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
First come rights, then comes government. The
overarching political principle embodied in those words is that the
government--i.e., its elected or appointed officials--must be subordinated
to the same moral law as the people it governs: Just as a private
individual may not steal from, cheat, enslave, or kill--that is, initiate force
against--another human being, so neither can government officials as
representative of society steal, cheat, enslave, or kill. Nor may a proper
government legally sanction such rights-violating actions by politically
powerful private individuals or groups. Government’s only purpose is to act as
the people’s agent of self-defense, securing their individual rights in an
orderly process--i.e., through the rule of objective law, applied equally to
all. The government is constitutionally bound to protect us from those who
would violate another’s rights, without becoming the rights-violator.
Capitalism is the consequence—the natural result of a republican, as opposed to
democratic, form of government and constitution.
It is the protection of individual rights
through the subordination of society and its government to moral law--that is,
universal justice--that makes capitalism ethical. Ethics is
fundamentally an individual, not a collective, issue. To be ethical means, in
large part, to respect the rights of others. A government’s laws, to be just,
must embody that respect. Capitalism does not guarantee that everyone will
respect the rights of others. It guarantees that to the extent one respects the
rights of others, he will be left politically, intellectually, and economically
free. Capitalism--that is, laissez-faire capitalism--is the only social
system that explicitly embodies these principles. Therefore, Capitalism is not
only ethical. It is, to date, the only ethical social system.
An ethical society means a free
society. A free society is a capitalist society. Volumes of
theory and centuries of practice back this up. Of course, what we have now is
not laissez-faire capitalism. We have a mixed economy of statism and
freedom--that is, an economy burdened by economic regulation, redistributive
taxation, cronyism, and an extortive political class. Here is a sampling of
suggested reading to clarify understanding:
- On capitalism, What is Capitalism by Ayn Rand, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and
Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire by Andrew Bernstein, and Capitalism and the Moral High Ground by
Craig Biddle.
- On individual rights, Moral Rights and Political Freedom by
Tara Smith and Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st
Century America by Timothy Sandefur and Christina Sandefur.
- On the U.S. Constitution, Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty
and Sovereignty of We the People by Randy E. Barnett and The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration
of Independence and the Right to Liberty by Timothy Sandefur.
Related Reading:
* [Quora is a social media website founded by
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Quora is a
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created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company
was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on
June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can
collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]
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