The following is excerpted and adapted from Mr. Brooks' upcoming book "The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise," to be released on May, 8 2012.Liberals often accuse conservatives of being obsessed by morality. But the truth is, many conservatives are reluctant to talk...

Anyone who seeks to provide serious national political leadership today--those elected in 2010 or who seek national office in 2012--owe Americans a plan to escape having to choose between investing in a social welfare state or a system in which our welfare state slowly collapses under its weight. We need tectonic changes, not minor fiddling.

Most of Americans believe that all should start at more or less the same place with more or less the same opportunities to succeed and that government should protect the returns for hard work yet they are marginalized by a 30 percent coalition that effectively wants the government to penalize success.

Conservatives need to be able to do four things better than they do currently. First, they need to be comfortable making the moral case about enterprise.

Arthur C. Brooks has been chosen by theAmerican Enterprise Institute'sBoard of Trustees to be the Institute'seleventh president.

This collection of essays, contributed by some of the nation's top scholars and thinkers, takes on the weighty task of sizing up America.

Free enterprise is a declaration of what Americans truly value, as people know intuitively that it allows them to earn their success, and in turn to achieve the greatest levels of happiness.

Happiness has a lot to do with values and it is key to our prosperity as a nation.