What Ayn Rand defines is anything but capitalism!!!!
I think capitalism is the right word for it. What she captures is its essence - a system that protects individual rights.
Her writing is very seductive. I remember being transfixed by Atlas Shrugged and finished the whole book in 3 days.
I've been reading various works of hers over the past ~10 years, both the novels and non-fiction, and I confess that I remain not only seduced but convinced.
Her version of "capitalism" ignores all secondary costs of actions taken by the John Galts of the world. Does John Galt pay for the environmental cost for the industry he creates? Does he even want to? Similar freeloading behavior of ignoring secondary costs (just look up the libertarian reaction to "cap and trade") is an unsaid theme in the entire "Ayn Rand" loving community.
Well she would probably have asked you to be a bit more clear and specific than "environmental cost". All manner of nebulous and ill-defined "problems" are blamed on capitalism, typically with some kind of large-scale state intervention proposed as the solution.
In the Q&A period of a talk she gave on 'The Anti-Industrial Revolution' she points out that things like pollution can be and are handled as a matter of property rights. One actor polluting another's property is rightly seen as an infringement on the other's rights.
She also points out that the industrial revolution brought about benefits that far outweighed their negatives. Things like cheap, plentiful food, advanced medical devices, the automobile.
If she were alive today she would likely argue (as many pro-capitalists do today) that we now live in a far less polluted world than in the 19th century, thanks to fossil fuels replacing open fires, and that pollution is on its way to dropping even further, thanks to the shale/fracking revolution, hydro, nuclear, etc.
History has proved her right.
Freeloading != Capitalism. You are supposed to pay for things you want in capitalism.
Which is why what we have today isn't capitalism, as governments around the world are consuming an enormous and ever increasing amount of the productive surplus of the economy.
If you get a chance - search Greenspan's (he was a personal friend of Ayn Rand) mea culpa in a congressional testimony someday. He recants his theory that markets will "self regulate" and visibly eats lots of crows in the video.
I will listen to it out of interest, however my understanding is that he wasn't very well schooled on her ideas and was disavowed by the objectivist community long before he became chairman of the fed.
Ayn Rand herself was a big fan of freeloading in her personal life. She paid into medicare for only 3-4 years - but used the benefits (in addition to Social Security) to the fullest when they were available to treat her for her cancer.
She argued herself many times that it's entirely ethical to "take back" what the government stole from us by any legal/safe means necessary. Given the magnitude of her economic and thought contributions to America and the world I think she was entitled to any and every state benefit.
---
As an Australian I find it a little sad that some of you Americans disdain Ayn Rand so much, when in my opinion, she exemplifies everything that's great about America. The fact that an immigrant from a war-torn country could build a new life in America. The character traits of conscientiousness, ambition, pride, rationality. The profound respect for the dignity of the individual above the tribe.
I'm talking about the ideals of America. I know you had slavery, Jim Crow, women not being able to vote, etc. I know you still have problems. But of the ideals and ideology of America, I think she's a good and admirable representative.
At least your country began with ideals and wasn't just an incidental colony of the British like Australia was.