In this wide-ranging episode of The Thinkery Podcast, Carl Benjamin (known on YouTube as “Sargon of Akkad”), interviews Yaron Brook. Among the many topics covered are: Why Adam Smith’s conventional morality undermines the case for capitalism; why Ayn Rand is not a “liberal” or a “conservative”; communism as the secularization of Christianity; the need for rational education; the essence of morality.
Did you know that many of the courses on ARI Campus have multiple-choice quizzes embedded in the lessons? In this post we’ll focus on courses by Leonard Peikoff, while in a subsequent post we’ll look at material from other instructors.
ARI has held worldwide essay contests for students on Ayn Rand’s fiction for thirty years. This year we will award over 750 prizes totaling more than $130,000. Last year’s contestants read and responded to essay prompts on Ayn Rand’s Anthem, The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. You can read all three winning essays on our essay contest page.
One of the biggest threats America faces — we are told — is the assault on our workforce: the loss of American jobs to immigrants, to foreign competition fueled by free trade, and even to technology that will make all kinds of jobs obsolete. In this talk the Ayn Rand Institute's executive chairman, Yaron Brook, argues that this fear is entirely misplaced — that a proper grasp of the virtue of productiveness shows that far from fearing and opposing free trade, immigration and robots, we should be eagerly embracing all three.
Peter Schwartz, distinguished fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and author of In Defense of Selfishness, recently published an article in The Hill in which he explains what it means to truly put “America First."
Those in the New York City area are invited to a free panel discussion of the Ivo Van Hove international production of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, which will soon be opening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Gilman Opera House.
“When, at the age of twelve, at the time of the Russian revolution, I first heard the Communist principle that Man must exist for the sake of the State, I perceived that this was the essential issue, that this principle was evil, and that it could lead to nothing but evil, regardless of any methods, details, decrees, policies, promises and pious platitudes.“
Because ideas are powerful, societies throughout history have controlled speech through coercion. But what if each individual is capable of attaining truth?