Today, thousands of Americans are joining modern day tea parties, named after the Boston Tea Party of 1773. They are protesting a government that, in the wake of today’s financial crisis, is rapidly strangling their freedom, with endless bailouts, mounting regulations, reckless spending, and the promise of a crippling tax burden. Correctly sensing that the American system is being discarded, they seek to battle this trend by taking to the streets to register their outrage.

But today’s statist onslaught is the result of a deeply entrenched set of ideas about the proper purpose of government. Virtually everyone today believes that unrestricted capitalism is immoral and dangerous, and that the government’s role is to actively intervene in the economy in order to achieve the “public good.” So long as these ideas remain unchallenged, and no positive alternative is offered, no protest will be able to change the country's course.

What’s needed today is not a tax revolt, but a revolt against today’s intellectual mainstream. On these pages, ARC experts provide a rational alternative to the ideas behind today’s march toward statism. They argue for a return to the Founding Fathers’ view of the proper role of government: that the purpose of government is not to exercise control over our lives for the “public good,” but to protect our rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. They show that the only economic system consistent with the Founders’ ideal is laissez-faire capitalism—and that it wasn’t capitalism, but massive government intervention that led to today’s crisis. They show that only by embracing capitalism as a profoundly moral ideal can we truly resist Washington’s assault on freedom, and return the country to liberty and prosperity.