Why I’m Not an Ayn Rand Libertarian

Any type of political ideology is going to have a lot of different variants of it.

Libertarians are constantly arguing with each other who is the most pure libertarian and who is most ideologically pure.  I have no real interest in those types of discussions or arguments and what I resist in one of the strains of libertarianism and that I reject is the idea that humankind is essentially selfish, not only as an observation that we frequently are selfish, but there is a strain of belief, particularly in the Ayn Rand part of the movement that believes people ought to be selfish, that that is a virtue, that humans are always self interested and altruism is evil and love is something that makes us weak and so I reject that aspect of libertarianism. 

I’m a caring, compassionate person and I believe that free markets and free minds leads to the greatest human flourishing, so I really want humans to flourish and I believe liberty and market economies and capitalism are the best strategies for full human flourishing, so I don’t identify with that strain of libertarianism that is sort of uncaring and kind of a social Darwinian variant of it.  I’m very uncomfortable with that.  I’m not that way myself. 

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

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