Libertarianism and Objectivism: Difference between revisions

Libertarianism and Objectivism have a complex relationship. Though they share many of the same political goals, Objectivists see some libertarians as plagiarists of their ideas "with the teeth pulled out of them,"[1] (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians) whereas some libertarians see Objectivists as dogmatic, unrealistic, and uncompromising. Ayn Rand herself despised libertarianism. In Ayn Rand's own words,

According to Reason editor Nick Gillespie in the magazine's March 2005 issue focusing on Objectivism's influence, Ayn Rand is "one of the most important figures in the libertarian movement... A century after her birth and more than a decade after her death, Rand remains one of the best-selling and most widely influential figures in American thought and culture" in general and in libertarianism in particular. In the same issue, Cathy Young says that "Libertarianism, the movement most closely connected to Rand’s ideas, is less an offspring than a rebel stepchild."[2]