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> Perhaps you'd care to disclose the particulars of the metaphysical pincicples that cash out capitalism, and what the rational/axiomatic justification is for accepting them, then?

This is a start - http://campus.aynrand.org/more/selected-full-essays/

I know I sound like a broken record but it really helps to read and grok before seeking out discussions or debates.

• Capitalism - the Unknown Ideal addresses this specifically
  
• The Virtue of Selfishness is a good collection of introductory essays
  
• OPAR is a good resource too. Although I have problems with some of Peikoff's original work, that book is, for the most part, a good one-stop-shop that outlines the philosophy
  
• PDF warning - This is a good reading list
  
  Finally, the ARI offers some decent academic courses on Objectivism.,

Objectivism is true because, Reality exists and functions according to laws independent of our wishes and wants, laws like causality which give consequences to human actions, actions which are caused but not necessary, therefore there exist a code of behavior which if followed, will more likely lead to long term well being of rational individuals. This is Objective morality. If one studies, derives Objective morality, one will realize that it is not something that must be obeyed, but it is something that we can observe & deduce, like how we do science. Another consequence of Objective morality is the concept of individual rights i.e. "Freedoms which do not violate freedoms" of individuals. It is possible to deduce, that a government, i.e. An agency which has a monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geographical area, ought to protect "freedoms which do not violate freedoms" of individuals instead of imposing unchosen obligations.

You should read Atlas Shrugged because it explains Objectivism without using philosophical jargon.

A shorter read would be What is Objectivism? by Craig Biddle and TV Tropes Overview

If you like philosophical jargon, and abstract ideas, then read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

Fiction books written by Objectivists:

• Noble Vision: A brilliant surgeon must choose between his career and freedom, and the woman he loves.
  
• The Sparrowhawk Series: Set at the time of the American Revolution, Jack Frake falls in with a band of smugglers and learns the meaning of freedom.
  
• Table For One (Graphic Novel): An artist must navigate his last night at his uncle's restaurant, and the return of his mysterious ex.
  
• Hunter: Thriller, who is hunter and who is hunted?
  
  And finally, here is a list of tons of libertarian and Objectivist fiction including several lesser known works by Rand.

By the way, this conversation has followed a very typical routine.

Person A says "How does one directly perceive the universe, as Rand says is possible, without the flaws of the senses interfering? That doesn't make sense." Rand says it's logically impossible for your perceptions to be incorrect or you wouldn't be able to argue that your perceptions are incorrect.

Someone like you comes along and after several rounds winds up backpedaling to a perfectly reasonable position, in this case, "my senses are sufficiently accurate that with additional reasoning and instrumentation, I can figure out to a large extent how the universe works."

This happens repeatedly with Rand's works, I find, because she tends to make outrageous and easily countered statements (such as it being impossible for one's perceptions to be flawed, or that man is the only rational animal, or the only creature capable of thinking conceptually as she defines it) and then goes on to argue something completely prosaic (if not downright mundane) from that that is nevertheless open to discussion (such as your argument that useful information is available to your senses, or that people think and use their judgment). She'll want to make point X which is open to debate, but then express it as X+++ and assert that X+++ is inarguable. If you point out that X+++ is actually flawed, supporters will say "but X is perfectly reasonable, how can you disagree?" But the actual following arguments depend on X+++ being logically true, not just "reasonable."

As for authorities, start with these two, which I found to be quite readable. Of course, feel free to consult actual college courses in neurophysiology or something if you actually want science instead of Rand's guesses about how objective reality behaves.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Brains-Machines-Ernest-Kent/dp/0070341230

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

I don't disagree that your senses give you important and useful information about the world. I disagree that it's impossible for your perceptions to be inaccurate, and I disagree that you directly perceive the universe as it really is without your senses distorting it. (Indeed, you'd probably be a pretty crappy organism, survival-wise, if your senses didn't distort your perception of the universe, as you'd likely be unable to pick out the important features.)

I'm not sure exactly how you'd formulate the problem, but I would say yes. Unfortunately, I can't link you to anything that goes into that online; the only discussions of Rand's meta-ethics that I know of are in OPAR and The Virtuous Egoist. Maybe someone else can link something, but I'll try to give you the bare essentials.

The first question Rand looks at in the ethical realm is "Is there a reason to adhere to any moral code?" She concludes that the only reason to follow a code to act in any certain way is if (1) the consequences of acting one way are different from the consequences of acting in another, and (2) you value one side of that alternative more.

Of course that doesn't yet give any guidance on what it is you should be valuing. Rand's critical idea is that your existence vs non-existence, life vs death, is the fundamental alternative that conscious beings face, and so whichever choice you make determines a lot of what you should value and in turn basically determines morality. If you want to live, food is a value. If you want to die, it's a disvalue.

Rand then goes on to say that if someone chooses non-existence, they don't actually require morality because they don't need to act in any particular way to achieve their goal. They can just not act and their goal will come to them.

Life, however, does require specific actions, and so we actually can make some interesting normative statements about how one should act in order to live, and from there she launches into the meat of ethics.

In the end, I'm not sure that she solves the problem so much as sidesteps it, but since I want to live (and presumably you do too, since you are still alive), the outcome is pretty much the same.

> Yes, that's the efficient causation. But final causatively, action begins with ideas. Recall the 4 kinds of causation identified by Aristotle. One of the errors determinists make is not recognizing final causation

Hmm... hadn't heard of that before. Interesting but I think I'd rather read Judea Pearl's book Causality than Aristotle's thoughts on Causality.

> I believe man is born as tabula rasa

I used to believe that, there's a lot of science that contradicts it, or at least limits how blank the slate is. But you don't need science to refute the general idea. If we're all born with no preconceived notions than how did thought itself emerge? Clearly our tools (culture) have written on our slate, often ways we aren't conscious of.

>Regardless, the valuing of society is not part of man's nature; rather, it's discovered and chosen.

Choice is another philosophically loaded concept. If you believe choice can occur on a subconscious level, then I don't disagree with you. But I believe people don't make significant choices unless their emotional state is worse than they think it should be.

>And while human are typically irrational and emotional thinkers in this point of time, I don't think that makes it their nature

It's their history. And my perspective is that history is a pretty good predictor of the future. Young people are often lead to believe that some great change is just around the corner, but that's rarely true.

Libertarianism is a political movement without a proper philosophy. It essentially advocates whim worship; it treats "freedom" as a sort of irreducible, contextless primary. It advocates anarchism (or "anarcho-capitalism", which is a contradiction in terms), which defaults to statism.

I highly recommend reading "Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty" by Peter Schwartz in "The Voice of Reason" for an in-depth explanation.

If you'd care to discuss any particular point though, it could be a fun reddit discussion!

The best option is almost certainly Leonard Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" (aka OPAR), based on lectures Peikoff gave in the 70s with Rand's approval:
http://www.amazon.com/Objectivism-Philosophy-Ayn-Rand-Library/dp/0452011019/

The other major option is Nathaniel Branden's "The Vision of Ayn Rand", which is essentially a transcript of an earlier set of lectures Branden gave in the 60s, also with Rand's approval (and before Rand broke ties with Branden):
http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Ayn-Rand-Principles-Objectivism-ebook/dp/B00LV0FX2S/

The philosophy you are critiquing is not Objectivism. Here is what Rand actually wrote:

>The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics -- the standard by which one judges what is good or evil -- is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.
>
>Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes, or destroys it is the evil.
>
>Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.
>
>If some men do not choose to think... their survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think...
>
>If some men attempt to survive by brute force or fraud, by looting, robbing, cheating, or enslaving the men who produce... their survival is made possible only by... the men who choose to think and to produce the goods..."

...

>The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the standard of value -- and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man...
>
>The difference between 'standard' and 'purpose' in this context is as follows: a 'standard' is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. 'That which is required for the survival of man qua man' is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose -- the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being -- belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own.
>
>Man must choose his actions, values, and goals by the standard of that which is proper to man -- in order to achieve, maintain, fulfill, and enjoy that ultimate value, that end in itself, which is his own life.

-- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness. Read the whole thing.

p.s. an even better quote follows:

> The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.
>
> Today, most people hold this premise as an absolute not to be questioned. And when one speaks of man's right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob, or murder others is in man's self-interest -- which he must selflessly renounce. The idea that man's self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others has never occurred to those humanitarian apostles of unselfishness, who proclaim their desire to achieve the brotherhood of men. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept 'rational' is omitted from the context of 'values,' 'desires,' 'self-interest,' and ethics.
>
>The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness -- which means: the values required for man's survival qua man -- which means: the values required for human survival -- not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the 'aspirations,' the feelings, the whims, or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society, and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.
>
>The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash -- that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

>...but what would be the harm in having someone speculate on the arbitrary? Since it is arbitrary, it is akin to thinking that a hypothetical situation might be possible.

An arbitrary claim is only properly entertained long enough to identify it as arbitrary. Once it has been identified as arbitrary, it is outside the realm of your cognition. It is not even a proper subject of speculation, since "speculation" implies that there is some shred of a reason for thinking it might be true. Thought about arbitrary statements should not be considered speculation, but should be acknowledged for what it is: fantasy.

In regard to monopolies:
>Would using market force as a means to eliminate competition be a use of force or cohersion?

There's no such thing as "market force," only voluntary trade, real coercion by physical force, and indirect coercion by fraud.

You need not worry about "predatory pricing": Attempting this depletes the profitability of the business and, even if it momentarily "succeeds" in a free market, there will always be another competitor waiting to undercut the overcharging business; if not another start-up, then a big conglomerate. If an inefficient business wanted to undercut all of its competition, it would have to run at a loss almost constantly.

Starting a business, or moving a conglomerate into a new business, would be much easier in a free market. That fluidity is people's protection against so-called "coercive monopolies."

By the way, have you read Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal?

Depends how serious of a study you want to make, and if there is any particular area you want to focus on. If you want it from start to finish, read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.

Rand herself never laid everything out in one work. It is kind of all over the place. The Virtue of Selfishness is more on morality, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal is more on economics.

The Ayn Rand Lexicon has excerpts by topic, and I think is available for free online somewhere.

Nathaniel Branden delivered a treatise in lecture form called The Basic Principles of Objectivism. It has now been transcribed to book form as The Vision of Ayn Rand. Both are quite good.

Lectures: https://thecultureofreasoncenter.com/the-basic-principles-of-objectivism.html

Kindle edition for the book: https://www.amazon.com/Vision-Ayn-Rand-Principles-Objectivism-ebook/dp/B00LV0FX2S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502550110&sr=8-1&keywords=the+vision+of+ayn+rand

I've commented about this before. Rand herself was happy with how the movie turned out, save the omission of one line (according to http://www.amazon.com/The-Passion-Rand-Barbara-Branden/dp/038524388X). She was heavily involved with production of the movie. As the other two mentioned, it's not a substitute for reading the book, by any means, but it stands on it's own as a very brief summery of the ideas in the book.

I've found value in a form of meditation invented by Eugene Gendlin called (what else) Focusing. Actually it does not have anything to do with focusing as AR defined it. Its a specific method to set aside or turn down all the self-talk and analysis and let you just feel what's going on in your body and subconscious. Below is a link to the book which is still available through Amazon.

Focusing

http://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rands-Normative-Ethics-Virtuous/dp/0521705460

http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/Virtues

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second/dp/0452010306

Galt's Gulch Sticker:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00PGE0EK6/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1504336398&sr=8-9&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ayn+rand+sticker

Rearden Steel Sticker:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00P84G8P4/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1504336446&sr=8-12&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ayn+rand+stickers

Rand's collection called The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution has an essay titled "The Anti-Industrial Revolution", which addresses environmentalism.

Note: The book is also sold under the title The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. I am not sure whether there is a difference other than the titles themselves.

Well, based on Objectivism Peikoff and Harriman have given an answer to the problem of induction (philosophy of science):
https://www.amazon.com/Logical-Leap-Induction-Physics/dp/0451230051

And Tara Smith has been working on the philosophy of law: https://www.amazon.com/Judicial-Review-Objective-Legal-System/dp/1107114497