In conclusion, the only clear political alternative that is good for human beings—that is, the only alternative that offers them high objective value in the long run—is a system based on the ideas of freedom, voluntary action, and the free market. Indeed, most of the ebbs and flows of history can be best understood in terms of the relative preponderance of freedom or statism. Leonard Peikoff aptly describes the relationship between freedom and cultural and economic advancement (

"Throughout history, the great innovators always flourished in the freer periods. Contrast the epochal achievements of the freer cities of ancient Greece with the stagnation across millennia of the theocracy of ancient Egypt; or the dazzling progress of the Renaissance with the retrogression under Church rule in the Middle Ages; or the beauty and wealth pouring from the cornucopia of the nineteenth century with the death-laden insignia of the twentieth. Observe also the fate of the independent man even in the semistatist countries today. The most eloquent evidence of it is called the 'brain drain,' as people from around the world, England included, flee to the United States. Within the United States, there is a similar flight—away from all-but-socialized fields like manufacturing and medicine to the less controlled professions."

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