We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they 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...
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson

Man survives through the use of his rational faculty. It is with reason that he reshapes his environment to suit his needs and wants. But it is only when man is free from coercion that he is free to employ and profit from his reason. It is the proper role of government to regulate the use of force within a society by banning the initiation of force and objectifying the conditions and manifestations of retaliatory force. Capitalism is the form of government in which the government's role is the protection of its citizens from force and nothing else.

Capitalism is the ideal form of government because it is the only form of government in which everyone is free from force and can thus pursue whatever goals and ends they most desire.

• Under Capitalism, if you want to start a business, then you just make a product and try to sell it. You don't spend months petitioning some bureaucrat for permission and filling out forms.
• Under Capitalism, if you want to build a new front porch, then you build it. You don't have to lobby city council for permission.
• Under Capitalism, if you want to help someone in need, then you can help whomever you think is most deserving. You don't have your money forcibly stolen by a tax collector and then redistributed to whomever the government thinks simply needs it.
• Under Capitalism, if you want to make sure your food is safe, you can look for a label from a consumer safety business that you most trust. You don't have an inept, corrupt, slow FDA forcibly driving all standards to those that they arbitrarily set. (please see Alan Greenspan's forceful essay "The Assault on Integrity" in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand.)
• Under Capitalism, each individual can soar to his highest abilities and achieve whatever he can without the shackles and crippling friction of unnecessary, unwanted, debilitating government intervention.

Every departure from Capitalism is a departure from a rational society. If one cannot convince another to agree, the two alternatives are to disagree or to engage in force until one party is beaten into submission. Every government regulation, forced taxation, and politically motivated criminalization of a victimless activity is a departure from reason into the realm of force -- it is the forcing of people to act against what they deem to be in their best interests. Every government regulation, forced taxation, and government intrusion is an act of tyranny and a violation of our natural rights by those who view might as right and who see the ends as justifying the means.

These days, whenever there is a problem, often the first resorted to instrument of change is the government. But the government is an agency of force. It can only destroy. It cannot create. The government's purpose is to destroy those who would initiate force on their fellow citizens, but every appeal to the government to fix some problem widens its scope of destruction. Government-as-general-problem-solver pits one interest group against another, each trying to use the power of government to destroy the other. Every act of government intervention is a sacrifice of one group of people for the benefit of another group. The only form of government that doesn't involve sacrifice of some for the benefits of others is Capitalism.

Our country was very close to laissez-faire capitalism for about 150 years. This was the golden age of the United States, in which the engine of freedom propelled us into a position of global dominance from a backwards agrarian country. America's success was not due to its natural resources -- Siberia has just as many resources as the U.S., not to mention parts of Africa and South America and especially the Middle East, which has the richest resources of any place on Earth. America's success was due to its capitalism. Capitalism works in practice, because in theory it is the only proper government for mankind. It is the ideal.