资本主义是一种建立在承认个人权利（包括财产权）基础上的制度，其中所有财产均为私人所有49。所有权的自由源于政教分离，以及随之而来的人的基本自由的发展。《源泉》的作者安·兰德1描述了私有财产所有权与政教分离之间的这种关系："当我说资本主义时，我指的是完整、纯粹、不受控制、不受管制的自由放任资本主义——国家与经济相分离，其方式和理由与政教分离相同"50。

Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned49. Freedom of ownership resulted from the separation of church and state and the consequent development of the basic freedom(s) of man. Ayn Rand,1 author of The Fountainhead, describes this relationship between private property ownership and the separation of church and state: “When I say capitalism, I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated Laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church”50.

与资本主义相对的另一个极端是社会主义或共产主义，它只承认公有制或国家所有制。共产主义哲学家，尤其是马克思，批判了资本主义制度下的私有制，并认为这种所有制是社会一切罪恶的根源。社会主义一旦掌控一个社会，它的首要任务便是没收个人财产，并将其转为公共财产，由国家加以控制。共产主义者甚至否认人类对拥有财产的基本需要和渴望；他们声称，个人追求占有物质的欲望，不过是资产阶级心态及其对社会影响的反映。

The other extreme opposite to capitalism is socialism/communism which only recognizes the public or state ownership. Communist philosophers, especially Marx, criticized the private ownership under capitalism and considered this type of ownership to be the root cause of all evils in a society. When socialism takes over a society, its first task will be the confiscation of the property of individuals and to transfer it to public property under the control of the state. The communists go all the way to deny the basic human need and aspiration for ownership; they claim that the striving of individuals to own things is a mere reflection of the bourgeois mentality and influence over the society.