All Episodes
The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast — 302 episodes
Jeff Bezos Admirably Defends Wealth Creation
Projecting Weakness: The Iran War Stalemate and Trump’s China Visit
Marketing AI Without Empowering Resentment
What It Takes to Learn a Philosophy
What People Get Wrong About Evil and the Iran War
Why Is Israel Blamed for the Iran War?
The Humiliating Iran Ceasefire Deal
Artemis II Is Inspiring – but NASA Is Holding Back Space Exploration
Why Billionaires Don’t Owe California Anything
Trump Is Fighting for American Freedom Overseas While Killing It at Home
Rubio’s Mystical and Racist View of the West is Anti-Civilization
Anthropic vs. Trump: The Moral Responsibility of Tech Companies
America Responds to Decades of Iranian Aggression
Choosing Life: An Interview with ‘The Green Prince’ Mosab Hassan Yousef
How the SCOTUS Tariff Decision Helps Slow the Advance of Authoritarianism
Ayn Rand, Immigrant: The Story of Her Journey to America
Is Trump Distinctively Responsible for the Rise of Political Violence?
Fear of Progress: The Quest To End Autonomous Driving
Values Are Made, Not Found: Watch Gregory Salmieri’s Talk on “Conceiving Values”
Texas A&M’s Ban on Plato: Anti-”Woke” Censorship?
Does Success Require Sacrifice?
Renee Good Killing and Tribalism in America
Iranian Theocracy on the Brink? Why Protesters Deserve Our Moral Support
Enlightenment on Trial: The Real Lessons of the American and French Revolutions
The Constitution Ignored: Trump’s War on Venezuela
Newton Versus Descartes on the Exactness of Mathematics
Steven Pinker’s Weak Defense of Enlightenment Values vs. Religion
Re-release: Christmas Is About Joy, Not Guilt
RFK Jr.’s Irrational Anti-Vaccine Policies: Interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja
How Drug Boats Could Be Used to Rationalize an Unjust War with Venezuela
Spinoza: A Hero of the Enlightenment
ICE Raids vs. Rule of Law: Interviewing Institute for Justice’s Josh Windham
Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Heritage, and Conservatism’s Moral Decay
Mamdani’s Victory: How Bad is it For America?
Trump’s Un-American, Unconstitutional Tariff Scheme
Saving the Enlightenment
Mamdani’s Socialist War on Gifted Kids
The Origin of Life, Agency & Purpose: Terrence Deacon’s Theory
Do Nobel Prize-Winning Economists Get Why Nations Fail?
How Friendship Can Be Selfish
Integrating Science and Free Will
Defending Embryo Screening from Irrational Opposition
Principles of a Proper Foreign Policy
The Injustice of the New Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Deal
Understanding “Woke” Ideology: Books by Yascha Mounk and Chris Rufo
It’s Up to You: Making Choices
Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza?
Patrick Deneen and the Right’s War on Freedom
What Is Western Civilization?
The Injustice of Recognizing a Palestinian State
Trump vs. Kimmel: The Tribal Weaponization of the FCC against Free Speech
Trump’s Anti-Capitalist Control Over Businesses
Charlie Kirk’s Murder: Who Normalized Political Violence?
The Road to Fascism (and Are We on It?)
Why Trump’s Antitrust Has No “Monopoly” on Moral Corruption
“Is Atlas Shrugging?” by Ayn Rand
How NOT to Explain Mamdani’s Socialist Revival
Immigration Enforcement and the Betrayal of Due Process
The Palestinians’ Most Deadly Weapon Against Israel: Altruism
Was Ayn Rand Anti-Family?
What Went Wrong With Capitalism — A Review of Ruchir Sharma’s Book
Abortion Bans vs. Women’s Lives
Trump vs. CBS: How Government Pressures Companies to Self-Censor
Profit Without Apology: The Moral Case for Business
Highlights from the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference
Tal Tsfany Unveils ARI’s Ambitions for Mainstreaming Objectivism
Ben Bayer on America’s Need to Declare Independence from Altruism
How Immigration Restrictions Cripple American Businesses
School Choice: Matt Bateman on Understanding Education Freedom
News Roundup
Preview of the Objectivist Conference 2025
The L.A. Riots and Mass Deportation: Both Evil
A Central Planner’s Trojan Horse: The Technological Republic
Joe Rogan vs. Douglas Murray: Who’s Right About Trusting Experts?
Reading Reform Beyond Phonics | Sam Weaver
The Making of the Atom Bomb | Evan Picoult
Trump’s Display of Arbitrary Immigration Power
Racism: What It Is and Why It Persists | Gregory Salmieri
Why Objectivity Demands a First-Handed Foreign Policy | Scott McDonald
The ARI Bookshelf Explores Abundance
How Capitalists Are Exploited
Aristotle and Darwin: Antagonists or Kindred Spirits? | James Lennox
How to Recognize “Package-Deals”
The New Iran Deal: Trump Recycles Obama Amoralism
An Introduction to Psychology | Gena Gorlin
21st-Century Revolutions in Medicine, Health Sciences, and Biotechnology | Amesh Adalja
Private Space Entrepreneurs vs. NASA: How Freedom Fuels Rockets
The Revolutionary, Secular Concept of Individual Rights | Ben Bayer
Philosophy of Math | Harry Binswanger
Does Targeting Columbia University Target Intellectual Freedom?
Why Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Message Is So Wrong on Palestine | ARI Bookshelf
Socratic Wisdom | Jason Rheins
Trump’s Authoritarian War on Trade
Marx vs. the Individual | Nikos Sotirakopoulos
Objectivity in One-to-One Conversations | Jean Moroney
Debunking the ‘Not Real Socialism’ Myth
‘From Heaven Through the World to Hell’: Goethe’s Faust as Romantic Hero | Nicolas Krusek
Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes | ARI Bookshelf
Why Business Leaders Won’t Object to Trump’s Tariffs
How to Value Friendship | Tristan de Liège
America’s History of Immigration Restrictions | Agustina Vergara Cid
USAID Corruption: Deeper Than You Think
Egoism Without Permission – It Begins with Desire | Tara Smith
Freely Determined by Kennon M. Sheldon | ARI Bookshelf
Why the Ayn Rand Institute Comments on Current Events
The ARI Bookshelf Explores Three Books on the Influence of Christianity on Western Culture
Behind the Scenes: Ayn Rand’s West Point Lecture (1974–2024)
Trump’s Betrayal of Ukraine
Karl Popper’s Rejection of Induction
Will Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post Defend “Personal Liberties and Free Markets”?
Cashing In on Objectivism
The Marxists’ Exploitation Myth
The Visionaries by Wolfram Eilenberger: ARI Bookshelf Discussion
Does Forgiveness Heal — or Whitewash Evil?
War, Politics, Ideas: A Panel on Foreign Policy
How to Think About Current Events
Israel and Trump’s Humiliating Gaza Deals
Philosophy, Work, and Business | Don Watkins and Tal Tsfany
Google’s Real Crime? Being Too Good. The Antitrust War Exposed
Interview with Energy Entrepreneur Bud Brigham: ARI Donor Roundtable
The Dramatic Injustice of the January 6 Pardons
Facebook’s Reversal on Content-Moderation and ‘Free Speech’
David Goggins, Suffering, and the Pursuit of Values
Jordan Peterson vs Ayn Rand on Finding Purpose in Life
Christmas Is About Joy, Not Guilt
Syria’s Collapse: Jihadists Replace Assad
The UnitedHealthCare CEO Shooting: America’s Persecuted Minority, Targeted Again
Behind-the-Scenes of Ayn Rand’s Second Interview with Mike Wallace
What Would Mass Deportations Mean for Freedom in America?
The Shameless Reporting on Israel’s Wars
Do Americans Have an Irrational, Religious Obsession With Work?
The 2024 U.S. Election: A Postmortem Analysis
Abortion Rights and the U.S. Election
Two Ayn Rand Biographies Not Worth Your Time
Sixty Years of The Virtue of Selfishness
A Year After October 7: What the Conflict Is Actually About
Space: The New Commercial Frontier
The Vicious Antitrust Case Against Google
Trump and Harris on Immigration
How to Defend Free Speech
Who is a Communist?
How America’s 9/11 Response Enabled October 7
Contrarians of the New Right
Free Speech as a Right and a Way of Life
Was Ayn Rand a Jewish Thinker?
We Ignore the Unconditional Right to Self-Defense at Our Peril
Neglected Victims, Empowered Cartels
Why U.S. Failed in Afghanistan. No, It’s Not What You Think.
The Democrats’ Devious Appeal to ‘Freedom’
Debunking the Supernaturalism That Haunts Secular Ethics
Don Watkins and Aaron Fried on How to Accelerate Your Understanding of Objectivism
The Problem with Pro-Immigration Arguments
The Supreme Court’s NetChoice Decision: Online Free Speech on the Brink
Evaluating the Trans Movement
Ten Commandments and DEI in Public Schools vs. the First Amendment
The Secular Moral Alternative to Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Why Socialists Fear the Republican Party Platform
The Trump Assassination Attempt and the Violent Climate of Tribalism
Are We the Soviets? A Reply to Niall Ferguson
Chevron Overturned
Has Neuroscience Debunked Free Will?: Response to Robert Sapolsky
Fueling an Intellectual Movement
Egoism Without Permission: An Interview with Tara Smith
OCON 2024: The Pre-Game Show
Understanding the Trump Phenomenon
The Chaotic Trump-RFK Libertarian Convention
DEI’s Secret Appeal
Harry Binswanger Comments on the Columbia Protests – 1968 and Today
Why Today’s Universities Don’t Care About Plagiarism: An Interview with Ben Bayer
The Divestment Crusade Against Israel
Milton Friedman vs Ayn Rand: How to Change the World
The Outrageous Public Support for the Pro-Hamas Protests
Why Do Philosophers Keep Getting Ayn Rand Wrong?
Iran attacks Israel
The 2024 Elections
Analyzing Javier Milei’s Interview at AynRandCon
What’s Wrong with California’s Ethnic Studies Mandate?
The Shameful UN Resolution Demanding an Israeli Ceasefire
Defend Apple Against the DOJ
A Legal Crisis in Immigration
Biden’s Price Control ‘Strike Force’
Does Fear of God Ground Morality?
Zack Snyder on The Fountainhead
How Biden Subverts Israel’s War on Hamas
The Alabama IVF Ruling: The Dead End of Anti-Abortion Logic
Tucker Carlson’s Glorification of the Putin Regime
Why No One Wins from Today’s Tribal Political Battles
Revealing Attacks on Taylor Swift and Tech CEOs
Ayn Rand: A Philosophical Life
Three Myths about Ayn Rand
Interview with Coleman Hughes: The End of Race Politics
The Good Empowering Evil: Israel, the U.S., and the West
The Plagiarism Ethics Scandal Nobody Is Talking About
The Manosphere: Tonic or Poison for Men?
New Ideal: From, And To, Intellectual Mavericks
Should Universities Dump the Humanities?
The Real Scandal Underlying Campus Antisemitism
Effective Egoism: Making the Case for Selfishness
Should We Have Immigration in a Welfare State?
Milei’s Election in Argentina: Is There an Ayn Rand Connection?
What Antisemitism Is
Jordan Peterson’s Sophomoric Attack on Ayn Rand
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Abandons Atheism for Christianity
International Law vs. War
The Ongoing Debate Over Reading Education
The Morality of Self-Defense and Innocent Deaths in War
Why Iran Fuels the Mideast War
The Unstable Foundation of Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimism
Global Protests: Anti-war, or Pro-Hamas?
Did Israel Steal Palestinian Land?
The Absurdity of Calling the U.S.-Mexico Border Crisis an ‘Invasion’
How to Think about the Death of Innocents in War
Rand and Oppenheimer: The Atomic Bomb Movie that Wasn’t
The Suffering of Moral Saints
Civilization vs. Barbarism: Ongoing Analysis of the Hamas War on Israel
The Hamas War on Israel
Cristiano Ronaldo and Joe Biden Whitewash Saudi Arabia
Libertarianism: Big Tent or Big Mess?
Independence in an ‘Interdependent’ World
Q&A on Ayn Rand’s Ethics with Dan Schwartz and Ziemowit Gowin
Ayn Rand’s Distinctive View of Romantic Art
Ayn Rand’s Repudiation of Original Sin
The U.S.-Iran Prisoner Swap: Biden’s Policy of Delusion
The Moral Justification of the Atomic Bomb
Chinese Foreign Policy Toward Taiwan: With Scott McDonald
Ayn Rand on Watergate
The Knowledge Gap Highlights a Failing of America’s Schools
Will Europe’s Immigration Problems Happen in the U.S.?
In Defense of Life Extension
Religious Skeptics Should Question Their Moral Theology
Special Announcement: We’re Releasing a Huge Trove of Essays on Rand’s Fiction and Philosophy
Philip Kitcher’s Critique of Today’s Useless Philosophy
‘What is a Woman?’ and Gender War Tribalism
In Defense of Self-Esteem
The Dishonest Debate on Immigration and National Security
OCON 2023: The Pre-Game Show
The ‘Social Justice’ War on Science
The Perpetual War on Israel: 1948-2023
Ayn Rand’s Devastating Critique of ‘Liberals’
‘Intellectual Humility’ vs. Intellectual Ambitiousness
Conservatives for Stagnation
Threats to Regulate Artificial Intelligence
The Meaning of the Iraq War
Effective Altruism’s Faith-Based Sacrifice for the Future
Libertarian Apologists for Putin
Ayn Rand vs. ‘Liberals’
Robert Reich’s Unjust Crusade against Billionaire Producers
Exciting New Courses at the Ayn Rand University
Why Nationalism Is Hostile to America
‘Heckler’s Veto’ at Stanford Law School
Q&A on the Best Objections to Objectivism
The Debate Over the Right to Immigrate
The Anti-Individualism of Affirmative Action
Systemic Altruism
Finding Morality and Happiness Without God
One Year of War in Ukraine: The View from Europe
DeSantis’ Push to Ideologically Transform Florida Colleges
Natalie Wexler’s Critique of the ‘Knowledge Gap’ in Schools
Ayn Rand, the Valuer
The Old Morality of the New Religions
How to Deal with Arbitrary Claims: Lessons from the Pandemic
Hamline University’s Shameful Attack on Education
Q&A on God and Religion with Aaron Smith and Mike Mazza
From Russia with Evil: The Philosophy of Alexander Dugin
The Illustrated Fountainhead: Serializing a Classic Novel
Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail
Musk, Twitter, and Free Speech; Ransoming Brittney Griner
The Philosophical Bankruptcy of ‘Effective Altruism’
How the Qatar World Cup Abets Authoritarian ‘Sportswashing’
The Toxic Ideas Behind the Quest for ‘Zero Covid’
‘Practicing Gratitude’ Evaluated: A Chat with Gena Gorlin
Discussing Ayn Rand on World Philosophy Day 2022
Why John Mearsheimer Gets Ukraine Wrong
The Midterm Elections: A Philosophical Postmortem
What Does Xi Jinping’s China Want?
Inviting in the Vandals: The Just Stop Oil Protests
Dismantling the ‘Neoliberalism’ Straw Man
Q&A on Free Will vs. Determinism with Ben Bayer and Mike Mazza
What Students Need to Find Literature Fascinating
What Liberalism and Its Discontents Gets So Wrong
The Protests in Russia and Iran
Why MacAskill Is Wrong about What We Owe the Future
Political Battles Over Education
The Banality of Putin and Xi
The Attacks on ‘Hustle Culture’
How America’s 9/11 Response Destroyed Trust in Institutions
Modernized Stoicism Critiqued
National Conservatism vs. Americanism
The Sorry Legacy of Our Policy Toward Iran
Not Everyone Who Is Mistaken Is Evil — But Some Are
New ARU Course: Foundations of Physical Science
Objectivism Q&A with Ben Bayer and Dan Schwartz
Ayn Rand’s Radical View of the United Nations
Engaging Honestly with Critical Race Theory’s Irrationality
Whitewashing a ‘Pariah’ State: Biden’s Visit to Saudi Arabia
Panel on America’s Culture: Live from OCON 2022
The Death of Abortion Rights in America: A Postmortem
Roe Is Overturned: ARI’s Response
Ayn Rand on the Necessity of Moral Judgment
The Virulent Pull of Tribalism
The January 6 Hearings
Kathleen Stock’s Reasoned Critique of Gender Ideology