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IT USUALLY BEGINS WITH AYN RAND 253
Rather than seeing these debates as a sign of intellectual health and
fertility, a testimony to the excitement and energy her ideas engendered,
Rand was violently opposed to any unapproved usage of her work. Even
as she laid down an offi cial party line, she insisted, “Objectivism is not an
organized movement and is not to be regarded as such by anyone.” But
such stern warnings did little to stop her readers from calling themselves
Objectivists and creating lectures, parties, social clubs, and newsletters
devoted to her thought. Rand’s principled opposition to the draft had
endeared her to politically aware students who sought a rational justifi -
cation for their opposition to the war. Beyond that, Atlas Shrugged had
indelibly etched the idea of a stateless capitalist utopia onto the rightwing
psyche. Anarchists were right to recognize that Rand’s ideas had
fi rst opened them to the possibility of radical antistatism. By denying the
morality of both conscription and taxation, Objectivism de- legitimized
two fundamental functions of any state. At the same time Rand’s fi ction
suggested that an alternative world was within reach. Once imagined,
Galt’s Gulch could never be forgotten.
Rand’s ideas became a powerful current in the fast-running tides of
the student right, referenced by a popular new symbol, the black fl ag
of anarchy modifi ed with a gold dollar sign. A broad reference to radical
libertarianism, the fl ag had multiple meanings. The dollar sign, the
totem of John Galt and Atlas Shrugged, was a clear allusion to Rand.
Its juxtaposition on the fl ag of anarchy, however, indicated allegiances
beyond Rand, usually to anarchism. Whatever its exact meaning, the
black fl ag looked menacing to conventional conservatives as it spread
beyond the Objectivist subculture into the wider conservative movement.
Reporting on a southern California Young Americans for
Freedom conference held in conjunction with Robert LeFevre’s radically
libertarian Rampart College, Gary North, a writer for the conservative
newsletter Chalcedon Report, was dismayed by what he found.
Instead of studious conservatives affi rming faith in God and country,
the conference was fi lled with eccentrics waving the black dollar-sign
fl ag. Enthusiastic libertarians debated proposals to create offshore tax
havens and argued over the fi ner points of Objectivist doctrine. “When
the talk drifted into a debate over whether or not Rearden was the true
hero of Atlas Shrugged, given the world in which we live, I left,” North
reported. He concluded, “I think it is safe to say that YAF is drifting.” 17
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