>I believe you stated that Objectivism can be summed up as "capitalism = good" . While that's one of the end results, Objectivism starts by defining individual rights, the nature of man and reason, and the ethics of rational self interest. When you extend her philosophy to other aspects of human existence, the political-economic corollary is laissez faire capitalism.

You say it "starts by defining" and this is what I meant by "She tries to take this philosophy and put it on an epistemological and metaphysical foundation that I wouldn't readily accept."

It seems to me she drew her conclusions based on life experiences, and then tried to rationalize her positions by creating premises that allowed for her conclusions. Her premises are the defintions, and as I stated they aren't something I'd readily accept, especially given the alternative views found in the philosophies of Kant, Hume, Popper and others.

Her is the version of objectivism I'm working from:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro

This is no doubt a short introduction, which never does any philosophy justice, which is why I'm open minded here. But some of these things I'm unsure of why they are accepted as true. For example:

Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

and

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

This is actually similar to my personal view of the Universe. She defines "reality" and "reason" as two different realsm in the Universe, where I have a similar setup but with different names. To me reality=the Universe and reason=nature. This is because I think that whatever reason tells us is real *is* real, as opposed to Rand's view where whatever reason tells us is real is a glimpse of a reality that is not directly observed.

Now a semantic issue isn't a show stopper, but the deeper dispute regarding the ontological question of "what is real" is, I would think.

Further, the following (and again, I realize I could be working with a simplified version here) I cannot imagine accepting as an absolute:

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

I could understand why this would be a definite good rule of thumb, as an analysis of utilitarianistic decisions would probably reveal. But an absolute? I wouldn't found a philosophy on that tenet.

Again, I think Rand tried to rationalize a foundation for her views after life experiences had molded her views. And her foundation seems inferior to competing philosophies.