”The floor of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today have no ided (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature. While archeologists are rummaging throught te ruins of millennia for scraps of pottery and bits of bones, from which to reconstruct some information about prehistorical existence – the events of less than a century ago are hidden under a mound more impenetrable than the geological debris of winds, floods, and earthquakes: a mound of silence.”(Laz: Did you think I was joking about Russia being more capitalist these days than America? I wasn't.)--Ayn Rand, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, 1966”The nineteenth century was the ultimate product and expression of the intellectual trend of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, which means: of a predominantly Aristotelian philosophy. And for the first time in history, it created a new economic system, the necessary corollary of political freedom, a system of free trade on a free market: capitalism.
No, it was not a full, perfect, unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism - as it should have been. Various degrees of government interference and control still remained, even in America – and this is what led to the eventual destruction of capitalism But the extent to which certain countries were free was the exact extent of their economic progress. America, the freest, achieved the most.
”Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty – it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof – the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century.
--Ayn Rand, Faith and Force: The destroyers of the Modern World, 1982Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness – yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries, and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries, while all the collectivist, internationalist, One-World systems are splitting the world into Balkanized tribes.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.
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.
Capitalism has been called cruel – yet it brought such hope, progress and general good will that the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.
As to pride, dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem – these are characteristics that mark a man for martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism.
--Ayn Rand, Global Balkanization