“While we’re on the…
“While we’re on the topic, could someone explain why Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff hate libertarianism? I remember reading an essay by Peikoff on the subject a few years ago, but most of it sounded like objecto-babble.”
The official orthodox reason for refusing to identify with “libertarianism” is, roughly, that “libertarianism” is claimed to involve an uncritical alliance with anyone who happens to share your views about political outcomes, without concern for why they hold those views. I.E., “libertarianism” can encompass not only an Objectivist theory of politics founded on an Objectivist theory of morality founded on Objectivist theories of knowledge, reality, and human nature; but also consequentialists, anarchists, Rothbardians, constitutionalists, pot-smoking hippies, and other ne’er-do-wells that Miss Rand wouldn’t want to be caught dead associating with. Peter Schwartz has a ridiculous essay (“Libertarianism: the perversion of liberty” or somesuch) in which he expounds the theory in much more polemical terms than even Rand ever mustered, which goes on at length about how libertarians broadly, and Murray Rothbard especially, are a bunch of whim-worshipping nihilists held together by nothing but the urge to destroy.
I think the real reasons have more to do with the antagonism between Rand and Rothbard, and with Objectivists’ revulsions at the aforementioned post-smoking hippies.
Anticopyright.