Ayn Rand Capitalism Quotes

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity. ~ 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

All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is always offered to take more of the poison that caused the disaster. Depressions are not the result of a free economy. ~ 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

(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

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 spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. ~ 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

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

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. ~ 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

The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave. ~ 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

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

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel. ~ 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

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

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

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 based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective. ~ 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

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. ~ Ayn Rand