Financiers don’t create the products that enrich our lives — they help grow the businesses that create the products that enrich our lives. Yet many people believe on some level that finance is immoral. Maybe not totally. Maybe it has some redeeming features. But at best it is regarded as a necessary evil. If our economic well-being depends on a vibrant and innovative financial industry, why does no one speak up to defend finance?
ARI invites law students to join the Legal Fellowship program. The fellowship is a unique program in which law students do in-depth policy research on topics at the intersection of law and philosophy. Our legal fellows work with ARI’s director of Legal Studies, Steve Simpson, an experienced constitutional lawyer who for many years worked at the Institute for Justice. Today we’d like to introduce you to one of the 2017 legal fellows: Andrew Napoli, a second-year student at Rutgers Law School in Camden, New Jersey.
ARI celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Anthem essay contest, which launched October 2, 1992. Click to read the winning essay in the 2017 Anthem essay contest, submitted by Elisabeth Schlossel from The Spence School in New York, New York.
Occasionally, in a blog post, we highlight important parts of the Ayn Rand Institute’s Annual Report. Our 2016 report contained this missive from Maja Vrtaric, who recounts her efforts to bring Objectivism to the Balkans.
Did you know that Ayn Rand kept a file folder called “Pictures I Like”? At our upcoming auction on September 28, 2017, you can win a beautifully framed reproduction of a postcard she saved, plus a replica statue of the artwork it depicts. Proxy bidding is available!
Odds are that you’ve never considered buying dish towels once owned by Ayn Rand. But here are three of them, including one with a cat motif and another in her favorite blue-green color. This set also comes with a gorgeously framed reproduction of two handwritten manuscript pages from Atlas Shrugged. (The majority of this material was cut from the final published book.) Hear our heroine, Dagny Taggart, reflects on the joys of fixing breakfast. Proxy bidding is available!
Up for auction on September 28, 2017, are three hardback books owned by Ayn Rand at the time of her death. All contain penciled marginal notes. Bureaucracy by Ludwig von Mises, Reason and Analysis by Brand Blanshard, and How to Think Creatively by Eliot Hutchinson can all be won even without attending our NYC auction in person (proxy bidding is available). Note: These books will be auctioned singly, not as a lot.
Critics of cronyism typically describe the problem as politicians and businesses conspiring to win government favors at the expense of taxpayers, or the public in general. While this view is not entirely wrong, it misses important aspects of the problem and does a grave injustice to businessmen who succeed through production rather than pull. This talk, by Ayn Rand Institute director of Legal Studies Steve Simpson, untangles the confusion about cronyism and explains why its biggest victims are businessmen.
