Separation of State and Religion as well as State and Business

Plenty to agree with, plenty to disagree with. The mark of a good essay?

From Capitalism Isn't Corporatism or Cronyism by Richard M. Salsman.

A couple of passages.

Historically, capitalism is only about 250 years old – a mere flick of the clock hand relative to mankind’s total time on earth so far (roughly 200,000 years, and only 15,000 years in the Americas). Capitalism arose during the Renaissance (1500s-1600s) and Enlightenment (1700s), which entailed a re-birth of reason, self-confidence, culture, and commerce – in short, the pursuit of one’s own personal happiness. This was in sharp contrast to what had preceded it for a millennium: zeal and faith, superstition, ignorance, oppression, torture, and economic poverty, imposed by church and state alike, amid religious Medievalism and the Dark Age. Capitalism has been co-extant with the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the Political Revolution, the last of which was realized in the U.S. Constitution (1787), which soon also abolished slavery.

Indeed, it is difficult to disentangle the pure theory capitalism from its important buttresses - Age of Enlightenment thinking, the Scientific Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution.

In fact, capitalism is the system of rights, liberty, civility, peace and non-sacrificial prosperity; it’s not the system of government that unjustly favors capitalists at others’ expense. It provides a level legal playing field plus officials who serve us as low-profile referees (not arbitrary rule-makers or score-changers). To be sure, capitalism also entails inequality – of ambition, talent, income, or wealth – because that’s how individuals (and firms) really are; they’re unique, not clones or inter-changeable parts, as the egalitarians claim. Capitalism is the political system which ensures that innocent “economic power” (i.e., the power to produce) isn’t mixed with force to become invalid political power (i.e., the power to loot); it’s the system that separates business and state, for the same good reason that it also makes sure to separate church and state. Neither of the two recent political movements – “Occupy Wall Street” or the “Tea Party” – seem to fully grasp this.