Objectivism is a comprehensive philosophy with a metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and esthetics, with all positions in each branch genetically dependent on the more fundamental ones. Ayn Rand's politics is a radical capitalism that has only one fundamental principle: no human may initiate the use of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy a value owned by another human. This principle applies to everyone, including the government. The government becomes the only agent of force and is constituted with checks and balances and specific mandates to guarantee that it may only use physical force defensively to prevent, stop, and punish the initiation of force for gain.

Many Libertarians admire Rand and are influenced by and agree with all but a small portion of her politics. The difference lies in the fact that the Objectivists are capitalists as a necessary consequence of the Objectivist ethics of rational egoism which is in turn a consequence of the epistemology that holds man's rational capacity to be the primary tool of survival as man.

Libertarians are often ex-objectivists who were unable to shed their altruist sentiments, or their religious beliefs, etc. for the sake of Objectivisms strict rational consistency. They are also often a-philosophical or only superficially philosophical laissez-faire capitalists who think that a 'big tent' policy will bring them a chance at the golden ring of political success much sooner. Ultimately, those reasons make them all pragmatists, a position more antithetical in the long run to Objectivism than either the left or the right.

Without the ethical underpinning of Objectivism, Libertarians have little to restrain them from compromising their principles. The best test is the issue of taxation. As is evident in the principle stated above, an Objectivist government would not be permitted to coerce taxes from the governed. Libertarians almost always are willing to have something taxed to fund government like excise taxes.


The right to property is not primarily the right to an object, but rather the right to an action, namely the right to produce values with which to further one's life as well as the right to the consequences of those actions, which are the products earned by them. In other words, one earns the right to control objects that are the repository of value created by one's ideas and efforts.

In Ayn Rand's words:

"Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property -- by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort." (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", 122)

This is in line with the classical view manifested in the homesteading of land in the populating of the American West: To claim it, you must improve it. You get to control the land that is the repository of the values you create. If you sell it, the new owner gets to control it for the same reason. It is the retainer of the wealth paid for it which is itself a retainer of values created by his ideas and efforts at a prior time. If it is deeded to you unimproved (as in sub-division of otherwise improved land), or inherited, it is the retainer of the value you represented or provided to the one who transferred it to you.