Over the course of recent years, the American electorate has become increasingly tribal, unthinking, and easily swayed by demagoguery. How should we think about the state of America’s political culture as we head into this year’s election season?
Recorded live on June 14th in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024
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Recorded live as part of AynRandCon Europe 2024 in Amsterdam.
Visit https://events.aynrand.org/ for more information.
Opponents of immigration often say those who want to come to America should “get in line” and follow the law. But the U.S. immigration system sets legal immigrants up for failure, and penalizes the best people who want to make America their home. The system is profoundly unjust both for immigrants and for Americans as well. Agustina Vergara Cid, an ARI Junior Fellow, will relate a number of immigration stories (including her own) in the context of the legal landscape that generates these injustices.
Recorded live at OCON 2023
The war in Ukraine continues nearly a year and a half since Russia’s initial invasion. In this talk, Dr. Brook will illuminate the causes and consequences of this war. What were the factors that led to it, and what is its current status? What lessons can we learn about the state of our culture by looking at the response in the West to the war in Ukraine—especially the response of the American Right?
Recorded live at OCON 2023
When America was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, Greece was among the countries with the strongest anti-American sentiment, together with the likes of Pakistan and Iran. At the same time, it was one of the few remaining countries with a strong Communist Party, and with leftist ideas having a significant pull in society. Why do anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism go hand in hand? Why are both prevalent among modern European culture? How can societies that have contributed to and benefitted from the achievements of the West share such an animosity towards the ideas that made them great? In this talk, Nikos Sotirakopoulos, will interrogate the above questions, and the links between anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, by drawing on his own experience from his years in the radical left.
Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023
We’re told that the gap between the poor and the rich has widened. Many decry the “injustice” of income and wealth inequality. But is it actually a problem and are the proposed remedies truly just? What is a fair “distribution” of income and wealth? Yaron Brook takes on these and related issues and argues that a genuinely laissez-faire capitalist society is, in fact, the only system of fairness, that is, justice.
Recorded March 5, 2014
Biopharmaceutical innovators responded heroically to the COVID-19 pandemic. In unprecedented time and with cutting-edge technologies, they created vaccines and other medical treatments that saved millions of lives around the world. For this extraordinary achievement, leftists and libertarians have vilified them, and politicians are actively seeking to confiscate their patents. This talk explains how patents made possible the unprecedented response to the pandemic and why these vital property rights have been wrongly attacked.
Recorded live on July 7, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
Dr. Binswanger defends a radical position on immigration: the moral imperative to end all forms of governmental interference with freedom of travel. Crossing a national border, he argues, should be as free, unregulated, and unsupervised as crossing a state border. He takes on all the common objections to open borders, including: “Immigrants take our jobs away,” “Open borders abandon sovereignty,” “Immigration is harmful in a welfare state,” and “Immigrants will vote the wrong way.” He concludes by explaining why freedom of entry is of special importance to Objectivists.
Recorded live on July 2, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
Rapid economic opening and growth since the 1980s led many to expect the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to undergo political liberalization and assume a business-friendly environment. This panel will explore contemporary conditions in the Communist Party–ruled state and seek answers to the coming challenges posed by its approach to economics: What are the implications for foreign corporations investing in the PRC? What risks do they face to their intellectual property? How is the Party leveraging technology for geopolitical gain?
Recorded live on July 6, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
During the seventy-plus-year history of the People’s Republic of China, it has transformed from a Leninist state, through chaos and technocrats, to what has been dubbed “market authoritarianism.” How can this change be accounted for under the continued reign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? This talk will explore the consistencies and inconsistencies in the CCP’s governance that have brought us to today and lay the groundwork for exploring what it will become tomorrow.
Recorded live on July 6, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
It’s difficult not to be discouraged at the state of today’s world: our dysfunctional politics, our battered economy, and a culture sinking deeper and deeper into irrationality and nihilism. In this talk, Yaron Brook explains why despite all of this, he is still optimistic. The signs of hope don’t make the headlines, but they’re all around us: from the continued innovation of the tech sector to the continued functioning of markets and businesses as engines of wealth- and job-creation, to the outraged backlash against the nuttiest ideas, to the persistent, gradual rise of Objectivism as it continues to reach more people and change more lives.
Recorded live on July 7, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference.
In this talk, Dr. Adalja will discuss the science behind vaccine platform technologies such as the mRNA vaccines. He will also describe how changes in the scientific context impact the role of vaccines, the misconception of science as omniscient, and how the arbitrary must play no role in scientific-medical matters.
Recorded live on July 6, 2022 as part of the Objectivist Summer Conference
From politics to the “culture wars,” it is evident that tribalism has added to the toxicity of the public sphere. But there is one other field where tribalism, i.e., the viewing of the world through the prism of a group, can be even more insidious: in one’s own thinking. Nikos will talk about how tribalism can poison our mind, and discuss what the remedy is.
Recorded at AynRandCon – Europe in London on April 2, 2022.
Government regulations have grown inexorably over decades and now impact all aspects of our lives. Just in the last year, we’ve seen regulatory measures ranging from the taken-for-granted Covid-19 lockdowns to the growing calls for antitrust attacks on the tech industry. Why do Americans increasingly look to government to regulate more and more of our activities? What are the underlying causes, and consequences, of the ever-growing regulatory state?
Note: Do to technical difficulties, the first few minutes of audio were not recorded. This podcast begins mid conversation.
Tens of millions have read Ayn Rand’s novels, including The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and half a million copies of her works now sell each year, but far fewer people know of the radical system of ideas underlying the stories she created. This lecture by Onkar Ghate introduces some of the main ideas of this controversial thinker — and their vital importance today. Recorded June 2, 2003
Recorded live as part of Ayn Rand Conference Europe 2020.
Many people believe that while freedom of speech is a vital human liberty, economic freedom is entirely separate, merely a distant and inferior relation. This lecture exposes their error by examining the underappreciated implications of free speech on free markets. After isolating the First Amendment’s core concern as intellectual freedom, Smith demonstrates how the mind is the bridge between speech and property—between intellectual activity, on the other hand, and its manifold material rewards, on the other.
Recorded Live in Cleveland on Thursday June 27th, 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it at all levels of government have disrupted all of our lives. As we begin to contemplate the challenge of reopening and rebuilding the economy in the face on the ongoing spread of the virus, it’s critical to employ the right philosophical framework for thinking about these issues, and to not be misled by false alternatives, wishful thinking, tribalistic finger-pointing and other forms of distorted thinking.
This Q&A is the final talk recorded on April 18, 2020, as part of AynRandCon-LIVE, a free online event offering a framework for thinking about the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it at all levels of government have disrupted all of our lives. As we begin to contemplate the challenge of reopening and rebuilding the economy in the face on the ongoing spread of the virus, it’s critical to employ the right philosophical framework for thinking about these issues, and to not be misled by false alternatives, wishful thinking, tribalistic finger-pointing and other forms of distorted thinking.
This is the third of four talks recorded on April 18, 2020, as part of AynRandCon-LIVE, a free online event offering a framework for thinking about the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it at all levels of government have disrupted all of our lives. As we begin to contemplate the challenge of reopening and rebuilding the economy in the face on the ongoing spread of the virus, it’s critical to employ the right philosophical framework for thinking about these issues, and to not be misled by false alternatives, wishful thinking, tribalistic finger-pointing and other forms of distorted thinking.
This is the second of four talks recorded on April 18, 2020, as part of AynRandCon-LIVE, a free online event offering a framework for thinking about the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.
Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report is joined by Yaron Brook, Brian Amerige, and Greg Salmieri LIVE from OCON to talk about big tech censorship, the Google leak, Project Veritas, free speech, YouTube demonetization, fake news, and more.
Join special guest Harry Binswanger for this entry in the series of Ayn Rand Institute webinars on Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and its application to current issues. His topic is the one principle on which our very lives depend: the principle of Individual Rights. This concept—which the United States of America was based upon—has now vanished from the public understanding with tragic results. In his discussion, Binswanger will present the Objectivist theory of what rights are (their metaphysical status), how we know them (their epistemological status) and what they mean in political practice.
Harry Binswanger explores another one of life’s big questions: What Are Rights and Where Do They Come from?
Tribalism is rampant in other countries. We’ll explore some of its forms and its role in the subjugation of individuals, the opposition to human progress, and the fueling of violent conflicts.
Perhaps the two areas of life which generate the most conflict and in which it is most important to think for oneself—and most rare are religion and morality. We’ll discuss why it’s so easy to follow the crowd here and why it’s vital to not do so.
This video was recorded at AynRandCon in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3, 2018.
Popular discussions of economics—with their focus on macroeconomic factors such as GDP, total unemployment, total jobs numbers, etc.—often reflect a collectivist mindset. This contributes to the America-versus-the-world tribalism inherent in today’s calls for tariffs and immigration restrictions. By contrast, the individualist approach embraces economic freedom and global trade.
This video was recorded at AynRandCon in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3, 2018.
Unfortunately, all three branches of our government are contributing to the tribalization of our legal system. As a result, the substance of our laws along with the laws’ administration authority are increasingly determined by power shifts among rival groups rather than by the sovereignty of individual rights.
This audio was recorded at AynRandCon in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3, 2018.
What does it mean to do one’s own thinking, especially about controversial issues, and why is this important? What are some of the obstacles to intellectual independence, and how can they be overcome?
This audio was recorded at AynRandCon in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 3, 2018.
This is the twelfth and final episode in a series looking at Objectivism’s approach to Happiness. Philosopher Gregory Salmieri joins Dave Rubin to discuss the state of today’s political culture.
In recent years, the internet has become the focus of debates about free speech, and the issue is rapidly coming to a head.
The internet provides a platform to bring people closer together and to empower individuals by enabling new voices to be heard and sparking the formation of new communities and new movements. But some of these communities are rife with hatred and bullying, and there are worries that social media is coarsening our political discourse. Many people think that social media outlets have too much power over how we speak and interact on the internet and that more government oversight is needed.
Where does this leave the idea of free speech? What sorts of speech should be permitted and prohibited online? And who should decide?
In this video, recorded at Objectivist Summer Conference 2018, Patrick Bet-David interviews Yaron Brook to discuss Objectivism and Capitalism. Brook responds to questions such as: Is Objectivism a philosophy for elitists? Is it sustainable to run a nation based on this philosophy? How is world peace achieved? Has religion done more good or bad for the world? Was Ayn Rand’s move to America as a young woman a “leap of faith”? What would the world look like if everyone accepted Objectivism? Does the virtue of selfishness work in every aspect of life? And more. . . .
Yaron Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute and travels extensively as ARI’s spokesman.
Brook can be heard weekly on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on the BlogTalkRadio podcast. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. He is the coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution; How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government and of Equal Is Unfair: America’s Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.
Brook serves on the boards of the Ayn Rand Institute, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism and CEHE (Center for Excellence in Higher Education), and he is a member of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Mont Pelerin Society.
Mr. Bet-David is passionate about shaping the next generation of leaders by teaching entrepreneurship and disrupting the traditional approach to a career. His popular YouTube videos “The Life of an Entrepreneur” and others are available on Valuetainment, a channel for entrepreneurs. He has hosted one-on-one interviews with NBA Hall of Famers James Worthy and Magic Johnson; author Robert Greene; entrepreneur and NBA team owner Mark Cuban; Indy-500 winner Al Unser Jr. and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
In the 1960s, protests erupted at U.C. Berkeley over a ban on political activity on campus. Students marched and occupied school property, all in the name of “free speech.” Today, the Free Speech Movement launched at Berkeley in the 1960s is widely held as a model for advocates of the right to free speech. Is that true? This talk analyzes the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and its implications for free speech today.
Cultural observers have often noted that Europe — and, more broadly, Western civilization — despite historically unprecedented success, is in danger of losing itself. But what exactly is being lost, and why? And what can be done about it?
In a recent panel discussion entitled “What Is Killing Western Civilization?,” Yaron Brook (chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute) and Douglas Murray (author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam) met at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers lecture theatre in central London to discuss the future of Western civilization in the context of its own identity crisis and the growing trend of immigration to the West from those outside it — and, in some cases, hostile to it. The panel, moderated by Claire Fox (director and founder of Academy of Ideas), addressed such questions as:
A conversation about freedom, between Yaron Brook, Dave Rubin and Eric Weinstein.
The political climate in the West, described by some as toxic, is deteriorating rapidly. The worse it gets, the more we hear about the conflation of speech and action, that words lead to violence, and that government should step in.
How serious are the problems around modern political discourse, such as trolling and de-platforming, and what is the best way to bring about constructive discussions on controversial topics?
This event was recorded live in London on October 12, 2018.