Greenspan at that time was a disciple and friend of Ayn Rand, and he first published "Antitrust" in Rand's monthly publication "The Objectivist Newsletter." Rand, who described herself as "a radical for capitalism," opposed antitrust law not only on economic grounds but also morally, as a violation of property rights, asserting that the "meaning and purpose" of antitrust law is "the penalizing of ability for being ability, the penalizing of success for being success, and the sacrifice of productive genius to the demands of envious mediocrity."