With America at 250, Capitalism Is (Still) an Unknown Ideal

A version of this article was originally published by the Southern California News Group on June 21, 2026.

On July 4 the United States will mark 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. The public celebrations, the fireworks, the parades, the bipartisan commemorations all promise to be spectacles. Too little thought, however, has been given to what’s truly distinctive about America. Two media outlets — The Free Press and the Wall Street Journal — stand out for commentary about America’s birthday that highlights capitalism. The Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief described capitalism as “arguably the country’s most distinctive characteristic.”

But to truly understand that characteristic, one must confront a disquieting truth: Today, virtually no one embraces capitalism.

Across the political spectrum, whether the rhetoric centers on due process, the First Amendment, or making America great again, capitalism is the one thing all sides oppose. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not akin to today’s progressives searching for the next economic handout or today’s conservatives clinging to faith, family and tradition. They were radicals, steeped in Enlightenment thought—and the American Experiment earned its name because they were consciously inventing something new.

To grasp that achievement, we must grasp that they were heirs both to John Locke and to Adam Smith. Just as they sought to separate church from state, so they sought to separate economy from state.

The new American government stripped the state of much of its power to enforce ideological orthodoxy or suppress dissenting views. Gone was the divine right of popes or kings to dictate doctrine. In the New World, the fate of a Socrates or a Galileo would be different. “It does me no injury,” Jefferson wrote, “for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or none. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Likewise, the government was stripped of much of its power to pick economic winners and losers. Titans of industry like Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan emerged to transform business and production, earning fortunes in America that the Old World would have strangled in the cradle — through such controls as guilds, royal monopolies, charters, and aristocratic privilege that dictated who was permitted to rise.

America was designed as a haven for the thinker and the producer, for creators of ideas and creators of wealth. Protecting the individual’s rights to life, liberty and property—this was the root of American prosperity and power. America was built for individuals who sought self-reliance, who sought the freedom, intellectual and economic, to pursue their own happiness.

Of course, the journey was complicated by intellectual inconsistencies and severe headwinds. The disestablishment of religion across the states had to continue well into the 19th century. The atrocious denial of rights to millions of enslaved people required a Civil War to begin correcting. But as America approached full capitalism in the latter half of that century, individuals’ standard of living soared, ushering in the modern world.

Today, however, this political ideal has few champions. One dominant political tribe seeks to impose a new “woke” orthodoxy—dictating speech, curriculum, and hiring practices. The other tribe seeks to impose old-style religion—expelling foreign dissenters, censoring late-night critics, and forcing young women to carry a small mass of human cells to term.

Economically, one tribe proudly attains the mayoral office of New York City by declaring it will force some people to subsidize other people’s “free” healthcare, education, and housing. The other tribe proudly wields federal executive power to pick winners and losers through economy-wide tariffs, imposed at the president’s whim but open to be renegotiated if you’re willing to bend the knee.

Capitalism is what made America great. But at our 250th anniversary, it is still — in Ayn Rand’s words — “an unknown ideal.”

What’s required to revive capitalism and restore America’s actual greatness? Grasp Rand’s insight into its true nature: full, consistent capitalism requires “a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.”

Image credit: Roy Rochlin / Getty Images Entertainment / via Getty Images