What restricts the individual's freedom is not other people's violence or threat of violence, but the physiological structure of his body and the inescapable nature-given scarcity of the factors of production. It is obvious that man's discretion to shape his fate can never trespass the limits drawn by what are called the laws of nature.

Few Americans are fully aware of the fact that their country enjoys the highest standard of living and that the way of life of the average American appears as fabulous and out of the reach to the immense majority of people inhabiting non-capitalistic countries. Most people belittle what they have and could possibly acquire, and crave those things which are inaccessible to them. It would be idle to lament this insatiable appetite for more and more goods. This lust is precisely the impulse which leads man on the way toward economic betterment. To content oneself with what one has already got or can easily get, and to abstain apathetically from any attempts to improve one's own material conditions, is not a virtue. Such an attitude is rather animal behavior than conduct of reasonable human beings. Man's most characteristic mark is that he never ceases in endeavors to advance his well-being by purposive activity.

What the capitalistic democracy of the market brings about is not rewarding people according to their "true" merits, inherent worth and moral eminence. What makes a man more or less prosperous is not the evaluation of his contribution from any "absolute" principle of justice, but evaluation on the part of his fellow men who exclusively apply the yardstick of their own personal wants, desires and ends. It is precisely this that the democratic system of the market means.

What counts in the frame of the market economy is not academic judgments of value, but the valuations actually manifested by people in buying or not buying.

Equality under the law gives you the power to challenge every millionaire. It is—in a market not sabotaged by government-imposed restrictions—exclusively your fault if you do not outstrip the chocolate king, the movie star and the boxing champion.

What makes many feel unhappy under capitalism is the fact that capitalism grants to each the opportunity to attain the most desirable positions which, of course, can only be attained by a few.

The suffering from frustrated ambition is peculiar to people living in a society of equality under the law. It is not caused by equality under the law, but by the fact that in a society of equality under the law the inequality of men with regard to intellectual abilities, will power and application becomes visible.

Daydreams of a "fair" world which would treat him according to his "real worth" are the refuge of all those plagued by a lack of self-knowledge.

Lenin correctly distinguishes between the work of the entrepreneurs on the one hand, and that of "the scientifically educated staff of engineers, agronomists and so on" on the other hand. These experts and technologists are mainly executors of orders. They obey under capitalism the capitalists, they will obey under socialism "the armed workers." The function of the capitalists and entrepreneurs is different; it is, according to Lenin, "control of production and distribution, of labor and products."

However, this is not the meaning that Lenin attaches to the term "control." As a Marxian he was unaware of the problems the conduct of production activities has to face under any imaginable system of social organization: the inevitable scarcity of the factors of production, the uncertainty of future conditions for which production has to provide, and the necessity of picking out from the bewildering multitude of technological methods suitable for the attainment of ends already chosen those which obstruct as little as possible the attainment of other ends—i.e., those with which the cost of production is lowest. No allusion to these matters can be found in the writings of Marx and Engels.

The wealth of an aristocrat is not a market phenomenon; it does not originate from supplying the consumers and can not be withdrawn or even affected by any action on the part of the public. It stems from conquest or from largess on the part of a conqueror.