Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights,
including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force
from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of
force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of
physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a
society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting
him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of
self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who
initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory
use of force under objective control.