Ayn Rand

Russian-American novelist and philosopher — author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged — founder of Objectivism — who argued for rational self-interest as the highest virtue and capitalism as the only moral social system — the most commercially successful philosopher in American history.

Creates Objectivism as a coherent philosophical system embedded in fiction — Rand's argument (that reality is objective, that reason is the only means of knowledge, that rational self-interest is the moral standard, and that laissez-faire capitalism is the only system consistent with these principles) is the most complete alternative to both religious conservatism and progressive collectivism in American intellectual life.