Objectivism

Introduction
Objectivism was created by Ayn Rand.  It has metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political theory.  Ayn Rand wrote several books.  Her most popular books We the Living, Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. They contained her philosophy.  A lot of Libertarians follow objectivist ideas.

Breakdown of Objectivism
The metaphysics of this philosophy is that objective reality is absolute.  Everything that exists has traits. Consciousness is the ability to perceive reality.  Epistemology (origin of knowledge) is human reason.  We obtain knowledge by observation, deductive reasoning,  inductive reasoning, and concept formation.  Ethics is rational self-interest.  Everyone should focus on their own happiness.  They shouldn't obtain happiness by using others.  We all choose our own values.  We can be conscious beings or stimulus-response mechanism. We all can think or not.  Thinking helps us create our life.  If we decide not to think; we become mere animals.  Political Theory is laissez-faire capitalism.  The government should be separate from the economy and religion.  Inalienable rights are very important in a capitalist society.

Ayn Rand
She was born 2/2/1905 in Russia.  She changed it to Ayn Rand.  She debated her friend at school over the best type of government for Russia.  Ayn Rand wanted the country to be a republic and Olga Nabokov wanted a constitutional monarchy.  After the Bolsheviks took over Russia her father lost his business and the family had to relocate.  Later on, they were able to live in St. Petersburg again.  But life was tough.  In high school, she became an atheist and decide reason was the greatest human quality.  She studied philosophy and majored in history in college.  She came to the US in 1926.  She became a screenwriter than she wrote novels that explained her philosophy.  Later in life, she gave lectures at universities.

Books
We the Living was her first novel.  It explained the evils of communism.  She saw it first hand in Russia.  The main character of this book wanted the freedom of chose.  Her family and Soviet Russia tried to control her. She met a man like her.  He also wanted freedom of chose.  She got shot when tried to cross the border for freedom.

Her second novel is The Fountainhead.  The main character in this book is Howard Roark.  He is an individualist.  The other characters are collectivists.  Howard was an architect.  He designed a building in his own style.  He had his own values and a healthy ego.  Peter Keating ego was too small.  He only became an architect because his mom wanted him too.  He was unhappy with his career.  He even killed an old man so he could advance his career.  Dominique Francon became Howard girlfriend.  She had a lot of the same values as Howard.  Gail Wynand was a wealthy newspaper owner.  He wanted to control people, which caused him to lose everything.  Ellsworth Toohey was the opposite of Howard Roark.  He wanted to control even more people.  He made people and accomplishments seem equal.  Of course, this is not true.

Her final novel is Atlas Shrugged.  This book shows what the US will be like if it were a communist.  The richest people would leave and everybody else would become slaves to the government.  This book promotes objectivism.  People should concern themselves with their own happiness.  Having private property is very important.

At first, Ayn books were unpopular, then they became very popular.

Ayn influence on Libertarianism
Ayn Rand is one of the most important women to libertarianism.  Ayn shows the beauty of laissez-faire capitalism.  An idea most libertarians agree with.  Objectivism promotes freedom just like libertarianism.  Objectivism is a philosophy that had a big impact on modern-day libertarianism.  Libertarianism is a broad political persuasion whose main idea is liberty.

Conclusion
Objectivism is a sweet philosophy.  I think it is a good philosophy for the government to follow.  I agree with most of it, but it a little incomplete.  Knowledge doesn't only come from reason it also comes from intuition. The subjective reality is absolute because objectivity is only subjective consensus.  What we call reality is based on our sensory perception.  Since humans, all have similar sensory perception; we tend to experience the same reality.  Objective reality is what we all perceive.  So it seems like objective reality is absolute, but it isn't literally true.  It is just our persistent illusion.  Let's pretend it's real.

References
campus.aynrand.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Living
http://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-blog/3789-libertarianism-and-objectivism-compatible