money

Why Bad Economics Won’t Go Away by Yaron Brook

Why is it that people don’t seem to learn from experience? It is clear that our existing Keynesian economic policies have failed miserably. We can compare controlled economies with those less controlled, and compare more regulated sectors of our own economy with those sectors that have fewer regulations. Logic and history are on the side of those economists who have advocated for free markets. Why do those who advocate sound economic policies continue to fail in substantially rolling back government intervention in the economy? It would seem so easy.

In this talk, delivered on December 1, 2011, at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, identifies the reasons people find the free-market idea so difficult to accept and why statist policies seem to make so much sense to them. He identifies why we have been losing this intellectual battle, and provides real solutions on how to make significant headway toward ending these bad economic policies, allowing us to achieve more freedom and prosperity.

Capitalism: The System of Individual Rights by Yaron Brook

Do citizens have a duty to serve the state? Or does government exist to protect the freedom of individuals to pursue their own lives and happiness? What are individual rights and what are they based on? Ayn Rand often described her political views by saying that she’s not a conservative but a “radical for capitalism.” What is capitalism? And how does it differ from both socialism and conservatism?

Recorded at AynRandCon – Europe in London on April 2, 2022.

Great Inventors as Great Capitalists by Adam Mossoff

We celebrate great inventors for their creations—the lightbulb, the sewing machine, the computer, the smartphone. Great innovators are often great capitalists, too. They often invent new business models, corporate organizations and other commercial mechanisms for producing, retailing and advertising their new products and services. In this talk, Adam Mossoff discusses the often-overlooked value-creating commercial innovations of great inventors in U.S. history.

Recorded live as part of The Objectivist Conference on August 29, 2021.

“Crypto Currencies” Panacea or Ponzi Scheme–or Neither? by Jim Brown, Lars Christensen, Carter Laren, Lawrence White

Bitcoin. Ethereum. Litecoin. Ripple. These and other digital currencies have fired the imagination of free-market advocates. Can crypto currencies replace fiat currencies? Can they compete with gold? What’s the future of the blockchain technology on which these inventions are built? Our panel of experts: Jim Brown, Lars Christensen, Carter Laren and Lawrence White have different points of view, and they will discuss the future — and the failings — of these fascinating innovations.

Recorded live at OCON 2018 on July 1, 2018.

Calls to “Abolish Billionaires” Are a Moral Travesty by Keith Lockitch

There’s a new campaign slogan among Democratic politicians: “Abolish Billionaires.” Nobody can honestly deserve a billion dollars, they claim, so they want to impose radical new taxes on the super-wealthy. Indeed, people are arguing that the very existence of billionaires is some kind of moral outrage.

Wealthy people are being blamed today for all the world’s problems. Yet all of those problems are actually the result of the very ideas being preached by the same leaders and intellectuals who want to “abolish” the billionaires.

But instead of vilifying and hating billionaires, we should be thanking them for improving all of our lives on a massive scale with the products they offer for voluntary trade on a free market.

As Ayn Rand argued in her novel Atlas Shrugged, if anyone deserves thanks on Thanksgiving, it’s those productive Atlases who carry the whole world on their shoulders.

Join Keith Lockitch as he argues that the real moral travesty is the campaign to abolish billionaires.