Capitalism cannot exist in a state where the government taxes everyone and gives to the privileged few, the Rev. Mr. Edmund A. Opitz declared last night.

In a speech to the Divinity School Student Association Forum, the Rev. Mr. Opitz asserted that "the principle of every welfare state has always been to deprive deserving people of money to supply the favored few." He further maintained that this "legal robbery" has been a feature of "every government since the beginning of civilization."

The Rev. Mr. Opitz. in his speech entitled "The Moral Case for Capitalism," said the average person tends to attribute all sorts of evils to the capitalist system. "It is fallacious," he said, "to blame the troubles of the world on capitalism. The features of our time--secularism, nationalism, democracy in its sense, and utilitarianism are at fault," he concluded.

"No one is opposed to capitalism in its pure state," the Rev. Mr. Opitz said. But he added that "economists reject the idea of objective values" and this tends to make money the 'god' of economics."

Offering his own definition of capitalism, he called it "the reliance on the pattern precipitated by the buying habits of the public as the basis for economic decision." He emphasized that "a fundamental facet of liberty is the right of people to conduct economic operations without interference."

However, the Rev. Mr. Opitz pointed out that governments have always been deep in economic life."