Ayn Rand was a twentieth-century novelist and philosopher who wrote two classic novels and created a new philosophy called “Objectivism.” As a novelist, her writing is full of implicit and explicit philosophic content and so illustrates, in the form of concrete characters and events, what are otherwise challenging and difficult ideas. As a twentieth-century philosopher, she was unique in rejecting the entire modern and post-modern (Kantian) tradition. Instead, she chose to correct, develop, integrate and systematize the ideas of Aristotle and John Locke to the extent of creating an essentially new philosophy filled with her own innovative discoveries. Although she was not an academic and wrote for a popular audience, she nevertheless addressed nearly all of the major issues in technical philosophy. As a result, in recent years there has been a rapidly increasing presence of Objectivist philosophers in academia.
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I’m an advocate of 100% political and economic freedom, i.e., laissez-faire capitalism.
The biggest influences on my political views (apart from current and historical observations) are the political philosophy of John Locke and the philosophic system of Ayn Rand. Locke argued that each individual possesses the rights to life, liberty and property, that these rights exist in nature prior to the formation of government, and that the only legitimate government is one whose function is limited to protecting these rights. Rand argued that man’s essential nature is to use his reason to produce the values on which his life depends, which in turn requires a government whose function is strictly limited to protecting him from the initiation of physical force by other men. Locke’s ideas were the basis for The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Rand’s essential contribution was to give Locke’s best theory of rights a consistent philosophic foundation that eliminates any possibility of misunderstanding or misapplication.
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I’m an advocate of the complete separation of the state from the economy, i.e., of a 100% free market.
Economics depends on politics, and politics depends on philosophy. A given political system—capitalism, communism, fascism, the mixed-economy/welfare state, etc.—represents the application of a particular set of philosophical premises, including moral premises, to the question of the proper role of government. Economics then describes the effects of a government’s activity on the production, trade, and so-called “distribution” of wealth.
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