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Libertarianism vs. Radical Capitalism: Is this contradiction fictional?

27 Nov
Libertarianism vs. Radical Capitalism – The Objective Standard

The enterprising Craig Biddle actually discusses various libertarian authors, including Objectivism friendly ones, at slightly more length than his predecessors have.

I think he misses at least one minor and one major point.

The minor one is that Ayn Rand called her politics “libertarian,” and recommended that word to Joan Kennedy Taylor when she gave Joan advice on her young Manhattan Republican club magazine Persuasion, in the 1960s, until Miss Rand had a tiff with her friend John Hospers leading her to abjure libertarians (having already had cross personal words with Murray and Joey Rothbard).

The major one being that many libertarians who use the phrase “natural rights” do think of themselves as discovering and articulating those rights by means of Ayn Rand’s or similar neo-Aristotelian philosophies. And when they say people can be libertarians even if they are Zorastrians, Rastafarians, Muslims, or Jews, they aren’t saying any of those religions supply sound foundations for ideas of justice or rights. Just that people do in fact hold libertarian policy positions motivated by their (often new) interpretations of those religions.