It is notorious that, in the Middle Ages, human relationships were characterized by mutual suspiciousness, hostility, and cruelty: everyone regarded his neighbor as a potential threat, and nothing was held more cheaply than human life. Such invariably is the case in any society where men are ruled by brute force. In putting an end to slavery and serfdom, capitalism introduced a social benevolence that would have been impossible under earlier systems. Capitalism valued a man’s life as it had never been valued before. Capitalism is the politico-economic expression of the principle that a man’s life, freedom, and happiness are his by moral right.

There is a passage in The Fountainhead that bears on this issue. “Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”

- Nathaniel Branden. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966).