Many people misunderstand and misinterpret capitalism. They think that because the word “capital” is used to designate the system that its chief purpose is to make wealthy men who are usually called capitalists and whose wealth, it is feared, is too often accumulated at the expense of poorer classes. I admit that there are instances, altogether too many, where this comes about. But this is not the true concept of capitalism. The capitalistic system in its inner essence, is little, if anything, more than a man’s free right to work, to choose his work, and enjoy the rewards of his efforts. In my estimation, it is a most precious thing and it is indispensable to the liberty and freedom of which America boasts. It is the only tried and tested system of free enterprise in this world and every other opposing system is built on an abridgment of personal liberty. For one I do not want to lose it.  But we will lose it if we do not understand it and recognize its virtues. It is not the capitalistic system itself that makes some men rich and some men poor. The men themselves do that, again with some exceptions. The system merely offers the opportunities.

Additionally, perhaps the most unapologetic proponent of Capitalism in the modern era, Ayn Rand (a self-proclaimed atheist) wrote, in a letter to Sylvia Austin in 1946,

Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of individualism — the inviolate sanctity of man’s soul, and the salvation of one’s soul as one’s first concern and highest goal; this means — one’s ego and the integrity of one’s ego.

While both Mr. Richards and Ms. Rand deserve more attention given to their remarks, and the context in which they were given, I offer these two quotations as a stimulus or beginning point for the honest observer to engage in a more serious study of the question.  In my own research I have concluded that not only is the doctrine of Christianity ‘not contradictory’ of capitalism, but that the very truths enshrined in the man-labeled philosophy ‘capitalism’ are in fact the same universal truths proclaimed in scripture as the Gospel.  In my view God himself is clearly a capitalist, meaning one who advocates, upholds, and lives by these principles.  Of course, that is a full topic for another time and space.

These basic ideas took thousands of years to mature and were ripened and refined through the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, the age of Reformation and through the great social revolution for liberty, prosperity and peace experienced during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in America, and the spread across the globe.

The particular cause of all FreeCapitalist Project members (also referred to as the ‘Cause of all FreeCapitalists’) is to promote the moral revolution described in the mission statement of the Project, through rugged individualism and social strength, based upon the universal principles of prosperity first advocated by America’s founding generation and most commonly referenced today in the Declaration of Independence and subsequently protected by the Constitution of the United States.

Those individuals in various locations throughout the United States and spreading from here across the globe, are engaged in a structured effort to fight for capitalism, not as a practical issue, not as an economic issue, but as it we suggested almost a full half century ago, with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue.

Social, political and religious leaders over the last one hundred and fifty years, have engaged in the battle for human liberty by electing to use the term capitalism, as a reference to the broad moral system of freedom.  These leaders include such remarkable men and women as Brigham Young, Ludwig Von Mises, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Ezra Taft Benson, and Ronald Reagan to name just a few.

While it is quite obvious that all of these leaders agreed in every aspect on capitalism, because no group has ever been organized to effectively usher forth a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American Founders, it should not be surprising that such leaders have, at times, had their disagreements.

There will be no comprehensive movement for freedom, and no significant progress in the effort to restrain the ever growing tyranny accomplished through the relentless expansion of government into all areas of life, happening at an increasing and frightening pace across the broad face of our planet-in all modern societies-until capitalism is advocated, defended, implemented, taught and upheld.  Additionally, it must be upheld-not as an economic system, not as a strategy for making money or gaining worldly wealth-but as the only moral, philosophical system consistent with the fundamental ideas of freedom and peace.

It is for this reason that the practical result sought by the FreeCapitalist Project will include the final reclamation of both the term and the philosophy.

The common misunderstandings related to capitalism are largely the result of those few, but powerful advocates of competing systems who have ritualistically demonized and mischaracterized the term.

The fact of the matter however, is the from the very beginning of its popular use in Western Society, prominent, successful and admirable leaders in politics, business, philosophy and even religion have used the term to describe the moral system of individual freedom, individual rights, private property and the community well-being which flows from the wide-scale respect of these basic principles.

Those who shy away from defending capitalism are those few who deliberately prefer a social system of collective government, those who have been influenced (knowingly or unknowingly) by collectivist/statist/socialist thinkers and those who have ignorantly come to mis-identify the key concepts and principles encompassed within the most useful and meaningful definition of the term.

America, however, has the most deeply rooted experience, history, and legacy for advocating the continued movement of men to a establish a more capitalistic society.  Eighteenth century America, by its example, its productivity, prosperity and cultural influence remade the entire world.  The fruits of the great American Revolution are still enjoyed, in still expanding ways, by people all across the globe.

As Dr. W. Cleon Skousen has written, in the short span of a few hundred years-the experiment begun by the American Founders-brought about more freedom, more prosperity, more peace, more advances in technology, medicine and respect for life than any other advancement recorded in the past 5,000 years of human history.   Yet, for the last century, the fundamentals of capitalism have been increasingly challenged, and the drive to develop a truly capitalist society has been significantly thwarted.

On one side of the present day conflict are those who support the philosophical concept of ‘rulers law’-which advocates that men and society are best governed, by the elite and capable few.  On the other side, are those who support and advocate the even more ancient truths called “people’s law” where individual liberty and the rights of individual men form the basis of all human interaction.

“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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Capitalists recognize that it is not the right to agree with others that is so crucial to man’s freedom, but it is the right to disagree and to dissent from tyranny in all forms.  It is the philosophy of capitalism and its institutions which protect and implement the right of men to disagree that keeps society open to what capitalist’s view as man’s most valuable attribute, his mind.

The late eighteenth century is when the ‘philosophy of freedom’ took root for the first time in modern history. The American founders were heavily influenced both directly and indirectly generations of ancient philosophers and very powerfully by their proximate European intellectual predecessors such as Adam Smith, John Locke.  The core of their movement, the American Revolution, and the subsequent, rapid spread of freedom movements across the globe, was fueled by several basic principles be made popular by social, political and religious leaders who had come to a renewed or ‘enlightened’ view concerning the nature of individual man.  These new views affected all spheres of human relations and were not restricted by politics, religious, or economic considerations alone.

Politically, the Founders referred to the ideas as ‘Republicanism.’  But, republics were not new on the world stage.  What was new about the political achievement of the Founders was that for the first time in modern history it was advocated from a new, moral foundation-made possible by the post-enlightenment view that “all men” were “equal by nature” and that no man or group of men was “rightly entitled” to special moral privilege or consideration.  Or, in other words, the longstanding tradition of cultural tyranny across the globe was challenged by a new view of individual man as the measure of all moral social interaction.  No man was required, according to this new view, to live primarily for another-as his slave, servant, serf or subject-being unjustly deprived of life, liberty or property by any other man or group of men claiming some supposed moral authority.   This basic worldview was not restricted to use or meaning in the political discussions of the time but affected all elements of man’s relationships with other men and during the period of the American Revolution was often referred to simply as Americanism.  The term, however, most consistently, effectively, and regularly used to define the entire body of thought related to this worldview, would later be coined as ‘capitalism.’

In modern society the term ‘Capitalism’ is used imprecisely and inaccurately.  Many scholars suggest that the term ‘Capitalism’ and its related term ‘Capitalist,’ was first derived in the English vernacular from a translation of the pejorative term used by Karl Marx in the mid to late nineteenth century to describe the class of men he called the elite “bourgeois” society who owned and controlled “society’s capital resources.”

While it is not clear that Marx invented the term, what is clear is that Marx’s sweeping critique of society and his call for revolution across the globe was essentially motivated by opposition to the philosophy of outlined and advocated by Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, and ultimately Adam Smith himself.  Instead, Marx and his colleagues advocated their competing version of ’socialism’ as diametrically opposed to the popular principles of the American Revolution-and he rejected basic social axioms such as private ownership of property, the creation of wealth through free exchange, and the natural benevolence of individual self-interest – all central to the cause of liberty, prosperity and peace.  To Marx, and to his modern contemporaries, the term ‘Capitalism’ represents a system which is responsible for oppressing the poor and exploited the working class. To students of the Founders, the philosophy of capitalism is the only moral system that guarantees to man his individual liberty, and therefore the only valid political, economic, and social standard for pursing prosperity and peace.