Gaia Online

In the realm of politics, we recognize that in order to take life-promoting action, a person must be free to do so; he must be free to act on the judgment of his mind, his basic means of living. The only thing that can stop him from doing so is other people, and the only way they can stop him is by means of physical force. Thus, in order to live peacefully together in a society—in order to live together as civilized beings, rather than as barbarians—people must refrain from using physical force against one another. This fact gives rise to the principle of individual rights, which is the principle of egoism applied to politics.

The principle of individual rights is the recognition of the fact that each person is morally an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; therefore, he morally must be left free to act on his own judgment for his own sake, so long as he does not violate that same right of others. This principle is not a matter of personal opinion or social convention or “divine revelation”; it is a matter of the factual requirements of human life in a social context.

A moral society—a civilized society—is one in which the initiation of physical force against human beings is prohibited by law. And the only social system in which such force is so prohibited—consistently and on principle—is pure, laissez-faire capitalism.

[Capitalism]—which, contrary to widespread mis-education, is not merely an economic system—is the social system of individual rights, including property rights, protected by a strictly limited government. In a laissez-faire society, if people want to deal with one another, they may do so only on voluntary terms, by uncoerced agreement. If they want to receive goods or services from others, they may offer to exchange value for value to mutual benefit; however, they may not seek to gain any value from others by means of physical force. People are fully free to act on their own judgment and thus to produce, keep, use, and dispose of their own property as they see fit; the only thing they are not “free” to do is to violate the rights of others. In a capitalist society, individual rights cannot legally be violated by anyone—including the government.

The sole purpose of the government in such a system is to protect the individual rights of its citizens by means of the police (to deal with domestic criminals), the military (to deal with foreign aggressors), and the courts of law (to adjudicate disputes). While the government holds a monopoly on the legal use of force, it is constitutionally forbidden to use initiatory force in any way whatsoever—and constitutionally required to use retaliatory force as necessary to protect the rights of its citizens.

For instance, the government is forbidden to seize the property of innocent people (e.g., eminent domain), to forcibly redistribute wealth (e.g., welfare), to dictate the terms of private contracts (e.g., minimum wage and antitrust laws), to restrict freedom of speech (e.g., campaign finance “reform”), to mandate motherhood (e.g., anti-abortion laws), to block scientific advancement (e.g., embryonic stem-cell research), to force citizens to fund religious organizations (e.g., faith-based initiatives), and to mandate “community” or “national” service (e.g., mandatory “volunteerism”). Simultaneously, the government is required to enforce laws against murder, assault, rape, child abuse, fraud, extortion, copyright infringement, slander, and the like. The government is also required to summarily dispose of foreign aggressors who initiate or threaten to initiate force against its citizens or their interests.

Capitalism—not the mongrel system of the United States today, but genuine capitalism—is the only social system that consistently prohibits anyone, including the government, from assaulting people or stealing their property. It is the only system that respects and protects individual rights as a matter of unwavering principle. In other words, capitalism is the only system that institutionalizes the requirements of human life in a social context. No other social system on earth does this. Thus, if man’s life is the standard of moral value, capitalism is the only moral social system.

As advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, we oppose the politics of conservatism—such as the notion that we are our “brothers’ keepers” and therefore must sacrificially serve strangers (e.g., Republican welfare programs); the notion that successful businessmen should be regulated (i.e., coerced) “at least to some extent” for the sake of the “little guy” (as if the so-called little guy cannot succeed in life by his own rational thinking); the notion that students in government-run schools should be indoctrinated with “intelligent design” theory or required to pray; the notion that scientists should be forbidden to engage in embryonic stem-cell research, while men, women, and children suffer from agonizing diseases that might otherwise be cured (“We mustn’t play God”)—and that those suffering from such diseases should be forced to “live” when they desperately want to die (“We mustn’t play God”); the notion that homosexuals should be prohibited from experiencing the joy of sex (“God disapproves”); and the notion that America’s military should sacrificially spread “freedom” (“God’s gift to mankind”) much less “democracy” (i.e., unlimited majority rule) to savages rather than selfishly and swiftly destroy America’s major enemies (“Love your enemies”).

We equally oppose the politics of liberalism—such as the notion that people have a “right” to be given goods or services (which obviously requires that someone be forced to provide them); the notion that government agencies, private businesses, and schools should be required to implement racist policies, such as “affirmative action” and “diversity training”; the notion that students in government-run schools should be indoctrinated with the relativism known as “multiculturalism” or the religion known as “environmentalism”; the notion that people should be forced to fund ideas or art of which they disapprove (e.g., via “public” radio or “public” grants); and the notion that America has no right to “interfere with” or “impose Western values on” (let alone destroy) regimes that are responsible for the slaughter of Americans.

Finally, we emphatically oppose the politics of libertarianism—the anti-intellectual movement that claims to advocate “liberty,” while flagrantly ignoring or denying the moral and philosophical foundations on which liberty depends. Liberty cannot even be defined, let alone defended, apart from answers to questions such as: What is the nature of reality? What is man’s means of knowledge? What is the nature of the good? What are rights, and where do they come from? To say, as libertarians do, that the “non-initiation-of-force principle” is an “axiom” or that liberty can be defended on any old philosophical base—whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, altruist, egoistic, subjectivist, relativist, postmodernist—or on no base at all—is simply absurd.

Contrary to conservatism, liberalism, and libertarianism, the politics of freedom depends on the ethics of egoism—which depends on the philosophy of reason—which is grounded in the basic nature of reality: the fact that things (including human beings) are what they are and can act (and live) only in accordance with their identities. The politics of freedom is the politics of self-interest; it cannot be defended with the ethics of self-sacrifice—or with a philosophy of unreason, unreality, or “super-nature”—or with no philosophy at all.

We at [The Objective Standard] are not conservatives, but, as Ayn Rand put it, “radicals for capitalism” (i.e., advocates of its root or foundation). We are not liberals, but absolutists for freedom. We are not libertarians, but fundamentalists for liberty. This is because we are radicals for reason—the foundation of which is: reality.