I love Ayn Rand! :-) I agree with her maybe 98% of the time. My main problem with her is not what she says but how she says it.
Rand writes as a kind of prophet or cult leader (not scholar or philosopher), with a tone of voice and approach which doesn't sufficiently respect the mind of the reader. Basically she says, between the lines: "Accept my authority and take it on faith. All who disagree are low-lifes who are being intellectually cowardly and dishonest."
I disagree somewhat with the mentioned standard of political value (which comes from Jeremy Bentham) which is undefined, undefinable (in my view), and implicitly collectivist. The proper disideratum, IMHO, is "the greatest good of the individual."
P.S. I read her book on capitalism many a moon ago, and find it absolutely brilliant.
“Accept my authority and take it on faith. All who disagree are low-lifes who are being intellectually cowardly and dishonest.”
She’s not wrong. My only problem with her is her somewhat militant atheism. But, in only takes her a few paragraphs to totally destroy the concept of the common good.