The year 2017 marks the 60th publication anniversary of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, so we’re talking to the authors of chapters in Robert Mayhew’s book Essays on Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” First up is Edwin A. Locke, whose chapter “The Traits of Business Heroes in Atlas Shrugged” focuses on character traits and moral virtues shared by the novel’s many business heroes, such as Hank Rearden, Francisco d’Anconia and Dagny Taggart.
For months, various newspapers have been trying to associate Donald Trump and his administration with Ayn Rand and her philosophy. Learn Liberty just published Steve Simpson’s all-new essay titled “Crony-In-Chief: Donald Trump Epitomizes Ayn Rand's ‘Aristocracy of Pull,’” in which he not only sets the record straight, but he also offers a radical solution to “cronyism.”
Dr. Jaana Woiceshyn, associate professor of business ethics and competitive strategy at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, Canada, recently wrote an article explaining why businessmen should care about the right to free speech — and how Steve Simpson’s Defending Free Speech provides the intellectual ammunition they need to fight for that right.
In case you haven’t noticed, the Ayn Rand Institute has a YouTube channel that we are regularly updating with talks, lectures, debates, interviews, Q&As and seminars.
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Manhattan Institute fellow Jared Meyer on the ride-sharing company Uber. Topics covered include: How Uber is creating opportunity for drivers and passengers, whether there is any merit to the criticisms of Uber and what Uber can teach us about how to fight for limited government.
More than fifty years after Ayn Rand described big business as “America’s persecuted minority,” businesspeople are still being subjected to widespread moral denunciation and regulatory oppression. But such continuing injustices do not warrant giving in to discouragement, observes Ayn Rand Institute senior fellow Onkar Ghate.
In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged businesspeople are portrayed as moral heroes by virtue of their enterprising vision and productivity. To help students identify their own purpose and pursue it with joyful conviction, ARI and STRIVE are co-hosting the Leven Foundation student conference on “The Morality of Value Creation and Trade.” Here, students will connect with professionals around the philosophy and business principles behind their success, informed by the ideas of Ayn Rand.
That innovative black Americans flourished in late 19th- and early 20th-century America is a little-known part of our heritage. This talk by Andrew Bernstein celebrates a number of great minds — including Madame C.J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire in America; George Washington Carver, who revolutionized agricultural science; and others — that, under the freedom of the capitalist system, triumphed over bigotry to reach great intellectual achievements.
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview John Tamny, editor of RealClearMarkets, on his new book Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics. Topics covered include: why Tamny thinks we should celebrate economic inequality; why great CEOs are actually underpaid; how the death tax harms even those who don’t have to pay it; effective communication of free-market ideas.
There’s something entirely fitting in the fact that the most sensible thing said about Sony’s decision not to release The Interview comes from a place not known for saying sensible things — Hollywood itself — while the most risible comments come from a place that is supposed to have serious responses to things like foreign nations threatening American citizens for exercising their constitutional rights. That’s Washington, D.C. (in case you’ve forgotten that it’s supposed to be a serious place). Comparing the two views expressed is illuminating and goes a long way toward explaining why North Korea felt free to threaten Sony — indeed, all of us—in the first place.
