• • • Tea Party brings Ayn Rand back 
Noah Kristula-Green, FrumForum Atheism  Ayn Rand Center  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Essay Contests  Yaron Brook  At least one part of the American economy has enjoyed a boom since the financial crisis: the estate of Ayn Rand and sales of her dystopic door stopper novel, Atlas Shrugged. Until recently interest in Rand represented a small subculture in conservative intellectual life—small, perhaps, because as long as Rand lived, she belligerently chase away anyone who disagreed, even slightly, with her “philosophy” of Objectivism. Rand denounced libertarians as “a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people” and conservatives as “futile, impotent and, culturally, dead.” In return, critics found Rand’s declaration that “The only philosophical debt I can acknowledge is to Aristotle,” laughable. The revelations of Rand’s destructive affair with Nathanial Branden undercut Rand’s writings on “rationally” practicing sex and love. Her acolytes were called “crazy” on the rare occasions they interacted with the outside world. But since the financial crisis, all has changed. The Ayn Rand Institute, which owns the Rand copyrights, claims that sales of Atlas Shrugged tripled between 2009 and 2008.     Share on Facebook

• • • The big shrug: Why Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas’ still resonates 
Allen Barton, Pajamas Media Ayn Rand Center  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Egoism  Yaron Brook  Video  The state of the world seems eerily similar to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. If government created the latest crisis, why are people blaming the private sector? Could it be that conservatives have abandoned individual rights? Front Page with Allen Barton talks to Yaron Brook and Terry Jones about Ayn Rand's classic novel and about whether we are sacrificing responsibility in the name of collectivist irresponsibility.

            Share on Facebook

• Karl Rove headed to Steamboat 
Brent Boyer, Steamboat Pilot & Today (Steamboat Springs, CO) Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  The Freedom Conference, sponsored and organized by the Steamboat Institute, is scheduled for Aug. 27 and 28 at The Steamboat Grand. [....] Confirmed speakers include Rove; Virginia Thomas, founder of Liberty Central; Tony Blankley, a panelist on KCRW-Santa Monica radio show “Left, Right and Center;” Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute; Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at The Cato Institute; Peter Brookes, senior fellow for National Security Affairs and a fellow for Policy Studies with the Heritage Foundation; and Jason Mattera, author of “Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation.”     Share on Facebook

• Founders’ Friday: Lessons from our Founding Fathers 
Glenn Beck, FOXNews - Glenn Beck Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  TV show transcript.I said earlier this week when Vince Flynn and Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Society were on, and I said, you don’t want a revolution. You have a revolution, it’s a nightmare. We turn into France, a bloodbath. You don’t want a revolution. You can’t make this kind of change unless you really know what you are talking about. Unless: A, God is there. And the next thing that you would need is to know who you are. You need to know what you’re fighting for.     Share on Facebook

• • • ‘Glenn Beck’: Is fiction turning into reality? 
Glenn Beck, FOXNews - Glenn Beck Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Image  TV show transcript.BECK: [....] You are really the one representing Ayn Rand at this point. When did she write “Fountainhead,” or “Atlas Shrugged”? YARON BROOK, PRESIDENT, AYN RAND INSTITUTE: ‘57. Fifty-three years ago. BECK: Fifty-three years ago. If I meet one more person who says, oh, my gosh, I just read Ayn Rand. I love this one. Glenn, have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged>”? I’m like yes, I have. They’re like, duh, a friend gave it to me and it’s all happening. I’m like, yes!     Share on Facebook

• • Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea 
Ira Stoll, FutureOfCapitalism.com Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  “Much of the current popular literature on the neocons is unpersuasively hostile, overwrought, superficial, paranoid, and wrongheaded,” write C. Bradley Thompson and Yaron Brook in their new book, Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. Professor Thompson, executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, was the subject of an interview on this site last year. Mr. Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.     Share on Facebook

• • How to truly honor our soldiers 
Paul Hsieh, Capitalism Magazine Alex Epstein  Elan Journo  John Lewis  Yaron Brook  While on vacation recently in New York City, my wife Diana and I attended a nice get-together with some local Objectivists. That evening, we had the pleasure of chatting with another Objectivist visiting NYC who was also an active-duty officer in the US Army.     Share on Facebook

• • • Interview: Yaron Brook 
Alexander D. Farris & C. James Block, Imagineer Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization focussed on spreading Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics, and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups, and corporations throughout the world. The Imagineer discussed how Objectivist philosophy applies to economics, the status quo of the American economic system, and the role democracy should play in society with Dr. Brook.     Share on Facebook

• ‘Is the real news dead?‘ 
WorldNetDaily Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  WND managing editor and veteran newsman David Kupelian will be among the speakers at a two-day international conference next week on the future of the press, titled “Is The (Real) News Dead?” Organized by the American Freedom Alliance, the conference will be held June 13-14 at Pepperdine University at its Malibu, California, campus. [....] He will be joined by speakers including: [....] Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a regular contributor to Forbes.com.     Share on Facebook

• • Does God have a place in your portfolio? 
Sheryl Nance-Nash, Black Enterprise Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  Many investors object to investment decisions made with anything other than pure quantitative analysis. Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, agrees with that sentiment. “You should evaluate an investment based on whether it achieves its intended goal,” says Brook. “In general, the goal of a business is to make money, not to serve a social agenda. Companies should be left alone to maximize their profits.” While that may seem a bit cold, Brook poses some questions for investors to ponder: “What does socially responsible investing even mean? Is it socially responsible to manufacture the weapons we need to protect ourselves in a time of war? Is selling alcohol socially responsible? And if not, what about Big Macs and M&M’s? Socially responsible is an undefined term that’s tailor-made for people who want to control what businesses can and can’t produce.”     Share on Facebook

• • Hyperinflation Q & A 
Brianna Aubin, Opinion Forum Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  One of the main reasons I subscribe to PJTV is because of the Front Page, which usually features Terry Jones of Investors Business Daily and Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute. Klavan on the Culture is hilarious, and the other people on PJTV do produce some good stuff, but my favorite program by far is watching Terry and Yaron hash out the economic and political scene with Allen Barton on the Front Page.     Share on Facebook

• Have we learned our lessons? 
Boston Globe Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents Lessons From the Financial Crisis: More Government or Less? with Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Peter Kadzis, editor of the Boston Phoenix and former contributor to Money, Forbes, and the Boston Business Journal. May 20, 6:30-8 p.m. Free.     Share on Facebook

• • • Philadelphia lecture addresses health care 
Darwyyn Deyo, Pennsylvania Independent Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  Health care is neither a right nor a privilege, Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute told an audience at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and Medical Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. Mr. Brook’s presentation was aimed at addressing the increase in government intervention in the health system.     Share on Facebook

• • • Yaron Brook of Ayn Rand Institute speaks at University of Pennsylvania 
Stacy Litz, The Examiner Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Yaron Brook, who is the president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute spoke last night at the University of Pennsylvania on the topic of health care in a discussion titled, "You are Not Your Brother's Health Care Provider" followed by Q&A. When it comes to health care, Brook took the individualist approach, especially of that promoted by Ayn Rand and her works. "First care about yourself and then your brothers, your neighbors."     Share on Facebook

• • • Would Rand be drinking tea? 
Brianna Aubin, Opinion Forum Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Yaron Brook  Rand warned anyone who would listen in the 60s and 70s that ours is not a free, capitalist economy but a mixed one, that a mixed economy cannot survive indefinitely, and that someday America would have to pick. Now that the day of reckoning is upon us, Objectivists are doing everything within their power to get their message of “reason, freedom, individualism and capitalism” out into the public in general and the Tea Partiers in particular.     Share on Facebook

• 4 to be honored by foundation 
Post and Courier (Charleston, SC) Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  Four members of the Charleston-area community will be honored next week at The Free Enterprise Foundation's annual Ethics and Civic Responsibility luncheon. [....] The event will feature a keynote address from Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.     Share on Facebook

• • An interview with Rev. Robert A. Sirico 
Free Market Mojo (blog) Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  [Q:] FMM: A few months back, Free Market Mojo had the opportunity to interview Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute. Ayn Rand was very opposed to faith, believing that man should live by reason alone. We asked Dr. Brook if it was possible for a person of faith to live by the three principle values of John Galt: reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Here is Dr. Brook’s reply: “To the extent someone follows a policy of faith—of believing in some supernatural being for which there is no evidence and whose alleged powers contradict everything we know about science—he is doing the opposite of living by reason.” As a person of faith, I would very much like to give you the opportunity to respond to this line of thinking. [A:] [....] It is my contention that we know the mind to be a reliable tool of cognition because the mind itself is designed by Intelligence. As Pope Benedict puts it, “Reason cannot emerge from non-reason.” I find it difficult to understand how people can believe that Mind can come from non-mind or that persons can emerge from non-persons and still argue for the reliability of the mind or the dignity and rights of human persons.     Share on Facebook

• • • Right on the money: Colloquium — Capitalism without guilt 
Gil Bento, The Vector (NJ Institute of Technology, Newark) Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Report on a speech given by Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute.Brook’s lecture [...] turned out to be a stimulating exercise in non-conventional thinking about economic and moral issues. Beginning with an analysis of our most recent economic downturn, Brook explained that the crisis we experienced was not a result of the failure of free markets.     Share on Facebook

• • • Speakers: Growing regulatory state makes world ‘colder’ and compromises capitalism 
Nathaniel Steele, Cornell Chronicle (Cornell U, Ithaca, NY) Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Egoism  Yaron Brook  Report on an April 1 talk, “The Practical and Moral Aspects of Capitalism," given at Cornell University by Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute and Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.The problem, argued Brook, is that "we are taught self-interest is wrong and immoral." As children, our parents encourage us to share, with no expectation of return. "Morality according to [Ayn] Rand is being the best you can be," and those who do their best and contribute to society deserve to set their own prices and keep their profits, Brook said. However, the act of giving is not removed from Brook's perfect world, but he envisions a world where all sales transactions involve individuals reaching agreements among themselves.     Share on Facebook

• • Yaron Brook interview 
Lou Dobbs, The Lou Dobbs Show Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Audio  Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute, discusses the role of federal government versus the private sector in our lives and producers vs. non-producers in our economy.     Share on Facebook