Culture And Society

Free Trade, Immigration and Robots, Oh My!

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.
Government And Business

Wealth Creators: The Forgotten Victims of Cronyism

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.
Culture And Society

Don Watkins on The Rubin Report, Part 2 [Video]

In the most recent episode of The Rubin Report, Don Watkins explains why a proper government is a necessary good, how government controls destroy progress and opportunity, why egalitarianism is a rationalization for envy, why the morality of need is incompatible with freedom and justice and why art is important in life.
Culture And Society

Don Watkins on The Rubin Report, Part 1 [Video]

In the most recent episode of The Rubin Report, Don Watkins explains why Ayn Rand is such a controversial philosopher, what makes Watkins tick as an intellectual activist, the demonization of businessmen, the moral meaning of life, Objectivism and libertarianism, the unselfishness of Donald Trump and more.
Government And Business

In Defense of Monopolies: How Antitrust Criminalizes Business Strategy [Video]

In this talk, Ryan Krause, assistant professor of Strategy at the Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, explains that non-coercive monopolies can and do exist on a free market, why non-coercive monopolies are benevolent, how business strategy is essentially a plan for achieving a monopoly and how antitrust law criminalizes the essence of business strategy.

Further Reading

Ayn Rand | 1957
For the New Intellectual

The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An industrialist who works for nothing but his own profit guiltlessly proclaims his refusal to be sacrificed for the “public good.”
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Ayn Rand | 1961
The Virtue of Selfishness

The Objectivist Ethics

What is morality? Why does man need it? — and how the answers to these questions give rise to an ethics of rational self-interest.
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