About Leonard Peikoff

In 1951, when he was 17-years-old, Leonard Peikoff made a trip to California that changed the course of his life. Through a friend who knew her, he was invited to the home of Ayn Rand, the novelist and Objectivist philosopher. Thus began a friendship and professional association that was to last until her death on March 6, 1982. Peikoff is Rand's legal heir.

"I had read The Fountainhead as an adolescent at a time when I was searching for values," Peikoff says. "The novel had a hero I could admire. He was a guide as to how to live, a beacon in a world that seemed to be collapsing. Once I met Ayn, heard her speak, felt the force of her conviction and grasped the logic of her ideas, I knew I had found a direction."

Peikoff returned to his native Canada where he finished his pre-med program at the University of Manitoba. He traveled to New York every six months to visit Rand, who had moved back to the East Coast. In 1953, he decided to transfer to New York University and get a degree in philosophy. He continued to study there under Sidney Hook until 1964 when he obtained his doctorate. Through this period, his friendship with Ayn Rand deepened.

"I had the extraordinary good fortune to read Atlas Shrugged in manuscript as it was being written, and to ask the author all the questions I wished about her ideas," Peikoff says. "My knowledge of philosophy was primitive at the time, but she was tremendously gifted at explaining her ideas. She was also patient and recommended many books for me to read. We talked philosophy late into the night on countless occasions. It was, for me, an invaluable education."

Like several other bright young men who were part of the Rand inner circle (among them Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers), Peikoff was attracted to Objectivism because of its view "of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." From 1957 until 1973, Peikoff taught philosophy at Hunter College, Long Island University, New York University, the University of Denver and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

After that, Peikoff worked full-time on The Ominous Parallels and gave lectures across the country. He gave  courses on Ayn Rand's philosophy regularly in New York City, which were taped and played to groups in some 100 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In addition, he spoke frequently before investment and financial conferences on the philosophic basis of capitalism.
 
Dr. Peikoff, who is a naturalized American citizen, was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1933. His father was a surgeon and his mother, before marriage, was a band leader in Western Canada. He has been a contributor to Barron's and an associate editor, with Ayn Rand, of The Objectivist (1968-71) and The Ayn Rand Letter (1971-76).

He is author of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (Dutton, 1991), the definitive statement of Objectivism.


Articles by Leonard Peikoff

End States Who Sponsor Terrorism (September 11, 2009)
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.

Health Care Is Not A Right (August 14, 2009)
Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea--which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical--it does not work--but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan--not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it--to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance.

Christmas Should be More Commercial (December 22, 2007)
Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post-Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the desire to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth.

Health Care is Not a Right (December 27, 2006)
"So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan -- not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it -- to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance."

Peikoff on the 2006 Elections (October 19, 2006)
Is there any point in voting for candidates of either entrenched party? Throwing out the incumbents "for a change" is to me an idea based on the philosophy that my head will stop hurting if I bang it on the opposite wall.

Religious Terrorism vs. Free Speech (February 19, 2006)
Muslim death threats against Danish cartoonists echo Khomeini's 1989 fatwa on Salman Rushdie--a death threat renewed this month by Iran's mullahs. Combating such religious terrorism is a moral necessity.

Abortion Rights are Pro-Life (January 23, 2003)
Roe V. Wade Anniversary Still Finds Defense of the Right to Abortion Compromised.

Beware of the Library of Congress (March 27, 2002)
Future literary figures or executors should think carefully before bequeathing or donating material to the Library of Congress. Its seeming willingness to litigate against an unwary donor is frightening.

Why Christmas Should be More Commercial (December 25, 2001)
It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.

End States That Sponsor Terrorism (October 2, 2001)
Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.

A Sin to Deport Elián (January 20, 2000)
In the name not of Cuban nationalism, but of Americanism in its original and deepest philosophical meaning, Elián Gonzalez must be allowed to remain here. Let this poor boy have a chance to live a human life. If "compassion" is one of our politicians' chief values, as they keep telling us, can't they show him any of it?

Why Christmas Should be More Commercial (December 25, 1998)
It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.

Health Care Is Not A Right (January 23, 1998)
I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical -- it does not work -- but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral.

Iraq: The Wrong War (January 28, 1997)
Iran--not Iraq--is the primary threat to American interest in the Middle East and has been since it confiscated our oil fields in the 1950s. Iran is the major sponsor of international terrorism throughout the world and is the country most responsible for lethal attacks on American citizens. For these reasons, Iran fully deserves bloody retribution.

Israel's--and America's--Fundamental Choice (June 1, 1996)
Over the coming months, the Clinton Administration will pressure the Israeli government to moderate its "impractical" stand toward the Arab countries. But the only practical policy in the Middle East rests upon the very opposite of moderation: the courage to act on moral principles.

Israel's--and America's--Fundamental Choice (June 1, 1996)
Over the coming months, the Clinton Administration will pressure the Israeli government to moderate its "impractical" stand toward the Arab countries. But the only practical policy in the Middle East rests upon the very opposite of moderation: the courage to act on moral principles.

What to Do about Terrorism (May 1, 1996)
The time is long overdue for retaliatory action, and this is what we must do: launch a real war against terrorism.