Ayn Rand saw the businessman as a symbol of something larger than commerce: a society where people can create, invest, trade, and build without political permission. Comment “Rand” and we’ll send you an article that explores this further. Workers, scientists, professionals, and soldiers can exist under authoritarian regimes, although often under coercion and severe restrictions. Independent entrepreneurs are different. They require property rights, contracts, freedom of association, and enough political restraint to make long-term plans. When those freedoms disappear, business becomes dependent on bureaucratic approval, political connections, or outright state control. That is why entrepreneurship can reveal something important about a society’s institutions. Where independent businesses can emerge, compete, fail, and succeed without serving political masters, economic freedom has real space to exist.