As Gov. George W. Bush tries to attract votes by differentiating himself from his Democratic opponent for the presidency, he faces an intractable problem: He is endorsing the basic values of Vice President Al Gore.

As the party conventions made clear, both candidates promote the ideals of self-sacrifice, community service and big government (although Gore wants it bigger). Both morally denounce individualism and selfish pursuit of material wealth--precisely the values that have fueled America's current prosperity.

At stake in the election, according to Gore, is "something more important than economic progress." Namely? Duty and sacrifice to the state, without which, he says, we will have "a culture with too much meanness, and not enough meaning."

He denounces the GOP's proposed tax cuts and condemned the wealthy and big business. To Gore, Americans' desire to send their children to private schools, keep their wealth, choose their doctors or save for retirement suggests a "meanness" that needs to be reigned in by law. Yet he supposedly finds meaning in a government that taxes more, spends more and regulates more. Gore pledges to fight for "the people, not the powerful." To him, the individuals who create all the wealth he intends to redistribute are not people, but mere fodder for his pet programs. This grab for power is the real meaning of Gore's proposals.

Yet the only power Americans need to fear is that of government. This power brought us the misery of the 1970s. Whenever the individual is sacrificed for the alleged benefit of the state, the country suffers a lower standard of living. Yet Gore wants an expanding government.

Gore's anti-capitalist themes, however, are a continuation of those launched by Bush himself at the Republican convention. Bush stressed his motto of "compassionate conservatism" and downplayed the value of material prosperity.

Prosperity, he said, can be "a drug in our system, dulling our sense of urgency, of empathy, of duty." We must not "be rich in possessions and poor in ideals." His message? Producing wealth isn't moral. Only giving it away is.

It is true America is more prosperous today than in the 1970s. Inflation and unemployment rates are at 30-year lows. The budget is balanced for the first time since 1969. Retirees' pensions have doubled since 1992, along with stock prices. Welfare rolls have been halved since the reforms of 1996. Crime rates have plummeted. We do not face war--either hot or cold.

But these achievements were made possible because, starting with the Reagan administration, government intervention lessened while the scope of personal freedom widened. Industries were deregulated. Tax rates were cut. Entrepreneurs were praised. Criminals were punished. And communism was vanquished.

America's spirit, economy and world stature were strengthened precisely to the extent that pro-capitalist ideas were adopted. But Bush and the Republicans are cravenly evading this fact. The GOP initiated America's renewal.

In the 1980s the Democrats denounced the rightward shift as the "Decade of Greed." But they regained the White House only when President Bush violated his "no new taxes" pledge. To retain office in 1996, President Clinton mimicked the GOP's 1994 themes of less government.

The GOP should recognize this by promoting pro-capitalist themes consistently. It should defend the founding American principle of the individual's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It should learn the lesson of its past success and uphold individualism as a moral ideal rather than parrot the stale, statist premises of the Democrats.

Philosopher Ayn Rand once observed "in any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one that wins . . . . When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."

Given only an echo, not a choice, by the Republicans, voters may well opt for the real McCoy, Al Gore.

Imagine a candidate who proclaims, loudly and proudly, that self-interest and capitalism are both practical and noble. Imagine a politician who tells voters that they--not the government--have a moral right to the wealth they have earned. Imagine someone who shows that the improvements of the past decade or two are the result of at least a partial embrace of capitalist ideals, and that a greater devotion to such ideals can bring even more prosperity and happiness. He'd win in a landslide.
 
Richard Salsman is an economist in Cambridge, MA, and a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.