The capacity to abstract and conceptualize offers man—to the extent that he is rational—a means of “relating” to the world around him immeasurably superior to that enjoyed by any other species. It does not “alienate” man from nature, it makes him nature’s master: an animal obeys nature blindly; man obeys her intelligently—and thereby acquires the power to command her.

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