A call for the separation of economy and state — VOICES for REASON

America is the nation of individualism and capitalism, but these values are being eroded—day-by-day, bailout-by-bailout, billion-by-billion, takeover-by-takeover.

That is why hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Americans, myself included, will be protesting at Tea Parties this weekend. (I will be one of the speakers at the San Diego protest—if you’re in Southern California, please come and introduce yourself.)

Invoking the Boston Tea Party, one of the seminal events leading up to the American Revolution, we will be protesting against a government that seizes our wealth and our liberty in ways that King George could never have dreamed of.

But being against today’s government is not enough. What are we for—and why? A “free market”? Free from what, exactly? “Limited government”? Limited to what, exactly? When freedom is at stake, neither vagueness nor platitudes will do.

At the Ayn Rand Center, in the spirit of Atlas Shrugged, we stand for a separation of economy and state.

That means:

• A truly “free market”—a market fully free from government interference.
• A truly limited government—a government strictly limited to the protection of the individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

To quote Ayn Rand:

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

The government has no Constitutional, moral, or economic basis for controlling the economy. We seek to revoke its power to manipulate interest rates, debase the currency, manage the practice of medicine, restrict practical sources of energy, or rob Peter to pay for Paul’s house, financial institution, or automaker.

We identify government control of the economy as the cause of our current financial crisis, and argue that removing this cancer is the only solution.

Some will say that separation of economy and state is too radical a goal. To be sure, this goal will take time—and a roadmap—to reach. But it is the only valid destination. Where liberty is concerned, “moderation” is suicide. Patrick Henry did not say “Give me a small rollback in government or give me death.” He said: give me liberty. So should we.