Ayn Rand Claims U.S. Government Penalizes Businessmen for Success

"The American businessman is a persecuted minority, discriminated against and penalized for his achievements," said Ayn Rand last night at the Ford Hall Forum. The controversial novelist maintained that the American businessman is "the scapegoat of the bureaucrats' hatred."

Defining freedom as the "absence of physical coercion," Miss Rand declared the "nature of government is physical coercion," for the "government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force."

Doesn't Know Government Exists

"In a free country, the citizen does not know the government exists," she maintained. It is when the statists, who believe "some men have the right to rob and coerce others," control the government that "dictatorship and destruction result."

"Depressions are brought about by the government" and cannot occur under a free economy, Miss Rand said. However, she indicated "we're on the way to the worst depression; one that will make '29 look like child's play."

Businessmen Become Criminals

"A man who becomes a criminal the minute he goes into business, no matter what he does," Miss Rand said in criticizing the Sherman Anti-Trust laws. They are "unintelligible laws the businessman can't help breaking," and their only meaning is the "penalizing of ability for being ability." They are a "constant threat of disaster," putting the businessman at the "mercy of any young bureaucrat," who has a "yen to do some trustbusting."

She called the 1961 General Electric case a "gruesome farce" and a "national disgrace," maintaining that it was "the most damning indictment of our culture" that the seven men were "sent to jail and no public voice was raised."

In a question and answer period following the lecture, Miss Rand was asked, "What can business do to get the government off its back?" she answered, "It is up to us intellectuals to take the chains off, and to destroy the anti-trust laws by propagating ideas." She suggested the businessman become more politically vocal and articulate.

When asked if small business can co-exist with big business, Miss Rand replied that it is "only when big business is free that small business can exist and flourish."