What Was Ayn Rand’s View of ‘Conservatism’?

By many of her fans and critics, Ayn Rand was often seen as belonging within the “conservative” movement. But Rand was not simply critical of “conservatism,” she repudiated it emphatically. Whereas she viewed the “liberals” of her time as morally corrupt for stealthily pushing the United States toward statism, she thought that there was something “more reprehensible still”: the attempt by “conservatives” to “defend freedom by stealth.” In this essay, originally published in New Ideal on June 30, 2021, Elan Journo looks at what Rand objected to, and why. Podcast audio: