Ayn Rand Capitalism Quotes & Sayings

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear. — Ayn Rand

It is a matter of record that in the German Election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis - with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy : capitalism and its parliamentary form of government. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtues, not of vices. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism is based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective. — Ayn Rand

I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows. — Ayn Rand

If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants - you maybe sure that whatever their motives, love of man is not one of them. — Ayn Rand

There might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best as he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers. — Ayn Rand

I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault. — Paul Ryan

(Ayn Rand was the godmother of laissez faire capitalism, the Virgin Mary of Libertarianism. She died in 1982. She spent her life attempting to turn selfishness into a religion so that people could claim their greed was grounded in the nature of man. Her heinous ideas and crappy books have given politicians philosophical cover to promote their "greed is good" agenda for decades. — Ian Gurvitz

If you want to save capitalism there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that has ever won in any moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full, moral certainty. — Ayn Rand

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve 'the common good.' It is true that capitalism does
if that catch-phrase has any meaning
but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification for capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice — Ayn Rand

Capitalism has been called nationalistic - yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace. — Ayn Rand

The more propaganda ... conservatives spread for capitalist economics while at the same time preaching collectivism morally and philosophically , the more nails they'll drive into capitalism's coffin. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. — Ayn Rand

And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand. — Paul Ryan

Ayn Rand more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism. — Paul Ryan

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned — Ayn Rand

It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature
the connection between his survival and his use of reason
that capitalism recognizes and protects. — Ayn Rand

The only thing that counts in life is solid, material assets. It's no time for theories when everything is falling to pieces around us. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church. — Ayn Rand

All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy. — Ayn Rand

Collectivism, as an intellectual power and a moral ideal, is dead. But freedom and individualism, and their political expression, capitalism, have not yet been discovered. — Ayn Rand

The majority of those who are loosely identified by the term 'liberals' are afraid to let themselves discover that what they advocate is statism. They want to keep all the advantages and effects of capitalism, while destroying the cause, and they want to establish statism without its necessary effects. They do not want to know or to admit that they are the champions of dictatorship and slavery. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future
if mankind is to have a future — Ayn Rand

Capitalism is our only moral system. All other systems take advantage of man's rights and liberties. — Ayn Rand

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. — Ayn Rand

One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.=Ayn Rand — Ayn Rand

Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. — Ayn Rand

Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force from social relationships. — Ayn Rand

Let those who are actually concerned with peace observe that capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history - a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world - from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. — Ayn Rand

Capitalism has been called a system of greed - yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of. — Ayn Rand