This sounds grandiose, but it is true. The very act of engaging in commerce is the exercise of the intellect. Fools do not prosper in a free society. They have a right to keep the efforts of their intellectual labour. No government or agency has the right to take the legitimate products of the human mind, which is what money is in the intellectual sense.
Money is the symbol of the productive human mind.
I've often thought that they distrust laissez-faire capitalism because it is a force that they, and everyone else, cannot control. Conservative's often pine for the 'old days,' when an altruistic capitalism was practiced. If you don't believe it, look at the popularity of people like William Bennett or Jack Kemp. Let's not blame liberals for everything. Conservatives helped lay the groundwork for the state we are in today, and if you look through your economic history, it was failing businessmen who called for anti-trust and regulation because they could not compete with their more efficient and productive peers.