Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1668

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Ayn Rand, c/o Random House, 457 Madison Avenue, New York City

January 6, 1959(?)

Dear Ayn Rand:

    Since reading your magnificent Atlas Shrugged, I have been wondering to what activity you are now devoting your very great talents. You have, I think, disclosed for all time the outrageous doings of our politicians and have given some hints about the possibility of escape from this increasing slavery.

     Must we have a general strike of all the competent people and reform by catastrophe, or is there some mode of evolution into a non-political type of public administration? It is my conviction that there is a non-political and non-coercive alternative to the bureaucratic system. The public business is the only kind of business that is administered by force or fraud, creates nothing, and instead of paying dividends, assesses taxes and losses against the public who are supposed to own it. Can the free-enterprise system move into the area now dominated by politicians? Such an extension of free-enterprise would of itself liberate all existing business and production and eventually create magnificent profits and values of its own.

     My recent volume, Citadel, Market and Altar, was worked out under the firm conviction that free-enterprise capitalism can gradually take over the whole public field.

     This is a genuinely radical point of view, yet it is recommended by conservatives of high repute. If upon examination of the enclosed printed material you should wish to examine this book, I shall be glad to have a gift or review copy sent to you with my highest compliments and admiration.

     Again congratulating you on your monumental work, and wishing well for all your endeavors, I am

Sincerely yours,

SH/m Enc.