[MD] Alternatives to the scientific method

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[ian]
> [Rand's] crude comparative politics - from totalitarian socialism to free-market democracy.

She also investigated "mixed economies" (see "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"); didn't like them.
[ian]
> [Rand] didn't seem to add anything, beyond the no-brainer "easy-bits" aka - Freedom good,
> imposition of force bad, and take responsibilty for your own philosophy of life.

You're only looking at her CONCLUSIONS.  Her genius lies in her ARGUMENTS for what to you (but unfortunately not enough others) are truisms.
 
[ian]
> a Pirsigian recognises that the primacy of "objects" (e.g. capital) is a fallacy in the first place.

You must have skimmed "Atlas Shrugged"!  In it, it's not capital but productive labor that is primary (in particular, by people of ideas).  It seems you've taken two words--"Objectivism" & "Capitalism"--& reconstructed Rand's philosophy in terms of your understanding of them.  Rand used the term "objective" not because she thought OBJECTS were primary, but because she thought TRUTH was OBJECTIVE.  Her definition of Capitalism: "a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."  (Notice, property need not be individually owned, it could be owned by, e.g., a commune, if that commune were formed according to the rights of its individual members.)  Capital, in economic terms, plays no essential role in Rand's Capitalism.  It is just an embodiment of indivual rights, as is labor.
Craig