The second Atlas Shrugged movie has now come out. Should this be viewed as a cause for celebration within the libertarian movement? Well, to know that we must first answer whether Objectivists are also libertarians. Is Objectivism a part of libertarianism?
Many people who claim to be Objectivists vehemently say No, it is not. My first reaction, on hearing them say that, is to think, “This is preposterous!” But it is hard to “answer” the question, because there is so much political and intellectual baggage caught up in it. In order to say “Objectivism is a type of libertarianism” you would need to define the two terms, and definitions vary so much that most people won’t agree on any two you give. And naturally, one doesn’t want to start a fight.
But let me put on my Objectivist hat for a moment and say: “In the next part of this essay I am going to demonstrate that reason and reality say that Objectivism is, in fact, a form of libertarianism, and I will be presenting the objective, neutral honest Truth.”
Here goes.
1. If “libertarian” means “extreme and radical defender of capitalism,” and “Objectivist” means “a follower of Ayn Rand,” then because Rand was an extreme, radical defender of capitalism, all of her true followers must be this type of person also. So all Objectivists are libertarians.
2. If “libertarian” means “a believer in the idea that aggression should never be initiated and violence should be used only in self-defense,” and this thought can be seen at the heart of Rand’s politics (consider the Project X episode in Atlas Shrugged, for example), then she was a libertarian and those who accept her philosophy are libertarians.
3. If “libertarian” refers to a belief that property comes from natural rights and human nature, a belief that mirrors one of Rand’s core beliefs, then the same conclusion can be drawn: she was a libertarian and her followers are also libertarians. Rothbardian libertarianism and Objectivism are like brother and sister, and Rothbard’s anti-Rand play “Mozart Was a Red” was merely a case of brother being mean to sister.
4. If “libertarian” refers to a belief that property rights are practical, pragmatic, and utilitarian, in the tradition of Hayek and Friedman, then yes, on the surface one might say that this is different from Objectivism. But let’s look more closely. The utilitarians say that capitalism will produce wealth and make people happy. Objectivism holds that capitalism is the system for “life on this Earth.” Translation: capitalism will make people happy. Rand bases her ethics on what will work in practical reality, although she takes this practicality and dresses it in the language of strict, almost puritan “morality.” Utilitarians like to say that they will obey whatever idea works best, whether it be capitalist or socialist, but in practice Hayek and Friedman were some of the most passionately idealistic and principled of capitalism’s defenders. Libertarian utilitarians take practicality and mold it into a theoretically consistent ideology based on the idea that capitalism will make people happy. Even in this sense, Objectivism is a type of libertarianism, if interpreted correctly.
5. If “libertarian” refers not to specific ideas but to a historical political movement and that movement’s members, then how can anyone ignore the steady foot traffic from Rand’s novels to the libertarian movement, during at least the past 50 years? This is the reason why It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand was so popular among libertarians. I suspect that an accurate poll of movement libertarians would reveal that at least 25% to 30% are post-Randian Objectivists, which is probably just as many as are Rothbardians or Ron Paul fanatics.
The truth is that the “official” Objectivist movement is a subset of libertarianism that, unfortunately, seeks to exclude and cast out anyone who disagrees with it, in an effort to preserve its ideological purity, which revolves around the quasi-worship of Rand; and that the “unofficial” Objectivist movement is overtly libertarian. Another truth is that many, perhaps most, of the other subsets of the libertarian movement are also obsessed with ideological purity and seek to cast out nonconformers. Anarchists hate minarchists, and vice versa, and some followers of Rothbard and his vision of anarchy are as stubborn as any Randroid. A more detailed account is beyond the scope of this essay, but can be found in Brian Doherty’s history of libertarianism, Radicals for Capitalism.
But all these people, including the Objectivists, are libertarians, whether they like it or not. Any contrary belief is illogical, self-contradictory, and blatantly irrational — precisely the type of thinking Rand preached against, although she herself had a spotty and checkered history of applying her theory of strict rationality in her personal life.
Some Objectivists reason in this form:
- Rand defined Objectivism.
- Rand said that Objectivists are not libertarians.
- Therefore Objectivists are not libertarians.
This sequence of assertions has a remarkable simplicity, of the kind that often appeals to the young. But, of course, the truly Randian thought would be: what matters is not what people believe or say, even about their own ideas; what matters is what exists in objective reality. I couldn’t agree more with this essential Objectivism. And I hope I have selected an appropriate way to provide an “unanswerable” question with an objective and obvious answer.
