The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast
The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast explores pressing cultural issues from the perspective of Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.
Episodes
July 25, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDVOG6tX8b8
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Don Watkins unveil their new book, Profit Without Apology: The Need to Stand Up for Business. This book is the latest publication of ARI’s new initiative, Atlas Circle, an intellectual project aimed at standing up for business and helping business stand up for itself.
Among the topics covered:
...
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July 21, 2025 • 15 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hGvQj376Uw
Podcast audio:
The 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, held in Boston, Massachusetts, wrapped up two weeks ago, and now you can get a taste of the wide range of topics and speakers featured at the event in a new highlights video.
The compilation includes clips from the following talks:
“What is Western Civilization?” by Yaron Brook;
“Revolutionary Constitutionalism” b...
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July 14, 2025 • 67 mins
https://youtu.be/9PCQRzAMohQ
Podcast audio:
As the Ayn Rand Institute marks its 40th anniversary, its mission to spread Objectivism through education has never been more urgent. In his 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference presentation, "Spreading Objectivism: A Vision for ARI's Future," President and CEO Tal Tsfany laid out a bold vision of the “big swings” ARI is taking to bring Objectivism into the cultural mainstream.
...
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July 14, 2025 • 89 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e-3oeMO-0w&t=4s
Podcast audio:
Ayn Rand viewed the American founding’s enshrinement of individuals rights as the greatest political achievement in human history. Yet the rising statism of the twentieth century dramatically undermined those ideals. In Rand’s view, America needed a moral revolution: one that renounced the ethics of altruism and embraced the morality of self-interest.
Wha...
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July 6, 2025 • 59 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtW5q-7XaTw
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Agustina Vergara Cid discuss how arbitrary immigration laws strangle American business.
Among the topics covered:
How immigration restrictions impose a form of economic central planning;
The role of the mixed economy in fueling the interest-group battle for legal carve-outs;
How ICE rai...
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June 27, 2025 • 64 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5csuEpTn69o
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Samantha Watkins interviews Dr. Matt Bateman, philosopher at GT School, co-founder of Higher Ground Education, and ARU instructor, about the school choice movement and the philosophical case for education freedom.
Among the topics covered:
What the expanding reach of school choice programs means for parent...
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June 23, 2025 • 32 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDj_LhwM0Vw
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo discuss two major recent events: Israel’s war against Iran and the political assassinations in Minnesota.
Among the topics covered:
The Israel-Iran War
Why Israel's war against Iran is a positive development;
Why a self-interested American foreign policy must break from th...
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June 18, 2025 • 24 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMepGP0ehPo
Podcast Audio
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Elan Journo interviews ARI intellectuals about their upcoming talks at the Objectivist Summer Conference, taking place July 1-5 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Among the topics covered:
Audra Hilse’s talk, “Revised Blueprints: Early Versions of Part II of The Fountainhead,” which will draw on archival material to...
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June 16, 2025 • 57 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YchKm3DnUFo
Podcast Audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Ben Bayer discuss the ongoing mass protests in Los Angeles and how the Trump administration’s response also shows a disregard for the rule of law.
Among the topics covered:
The scale of the violence;
Evidence that the rioters do not care about immigrants’ individual rights;
Why the ri...
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June 9, 2025 • 54 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A28R9JnfNro
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The ARI Bookshelf, Elan Journo, Mike Mazza, Nikos Sotirakopoulos and Robertas Bakula discuss The Technological Republic, the recent New York Times bestseller by Alexander C. Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, and Nicholas W. Zamiska, the company’s head of corporate affairs and legal counsel.
Karp and Zamiska argue that America’s future grea...
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June 2, 2025 • 69 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY3NY7gFYtw
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Tristan de Liège examine Douglas Murray’s recent critique of Joe Rogan and other influencers who share their platforms with unreliable pseudo-experts. They explain why Murray fails to clarify the standards for distinguishing expert from non-expert testimony.
Among the topics covered:
Why Doug...
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June 1, 2025 • 60 mins
https://youtu.be/iVJOTxv-tWk
Podcast audio:
American schools have long performed dismally at providing the education children need to read well. A movement in favor of systematic phonics instruction offers hope for improvement, but while phonics is essential to teaching children to read, they need further education to become highly capable readers. This talk by Sam Weaver defines a properly aspirational goal for reading ...
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May 30, 2025 • 95 mins
https://youtu.be/o615h8druDE
Podcast audio:
The creation of the atom bomb during WWII was an extraordinary achievement, dramatized in part in the movie Oppenheimer. What were the three greatest challenges in making the bomb and how does the success in overcoming those very difficult obstacles illustrate the application of objectivity? Which great scientists’ work were most essential to the success of the project? As Ayn ...
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May 19, 2025 • 67 mins
https://youtu.be/VUYooprteeU
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Agustina Vergara Cid analyze how the Trump administration’s immigration policy has escalated attacks on due process, legal immigration, and the broader American system of government.
(Since the recording of this podcast, Rümeysa Öztürk has been granted bail by a federal judge and released after more than six ...
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May 16, 2025 • 87 mins
https://youtu.be/RclwB5luKek
Podcast audio:
Ayn Rand denounced racism as “the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” She also rejected as collectivist many of the measures being advocated to combat this evil, including what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On the sixtieth anniversary of that law, Dr. Greg Salmieri revisited the themes of Rand’s classic article “Racism,” relating them to present-day Ame...
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May 13, 2025 • 59 mins
https://youtu.be/2yQWRvrbVUI
Podcast audio:
Foreign policy is both a political activity and a field of applied ethics. However, the metaphysical and epistemological premises held by theorists and practitioners shape their view of ethics. The lack of an objective view of the world has led to theories and policies that do not support, and are often harmful to, the role of a proper government. However, as Scott McDonald exp...
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May 12, 2025 • 83 mins
https://youtu.be/LVNSnbdEo0o
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The ARI Bookshelf, Onkar Ghate, Tristan de Liège, and Robertas Bakula discuss Abundance, the recent best-selling book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson that has gained traction in liberal circles.
Klein and Thompson acknowledge the failings of past liberal policies and present what they call the “abundance agenda” as an alternative. The agenda emphasizes st...
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May 12, 2025 • 54 mins
https://youtu.be/0R_RjyOJeI4
Podcast audio:
In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer, Robertas Bakula, and Tristan de Liège explore how the mixed economy enables the unjust exploitation of society’s most productive individuals.
Among the topics covered:
Why, contrary to Marxist claims, businesspeople are the most exploited group in a mixed economy;
How antitrust laws enable the government an...
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May 8, 2025 • 89 mins
https://youtu.be/7Wjrmh8CjAk
Podcast audio:
As a historian and philosopher of biology, much of Dr. James Lennox’s research has focused on the philosophical foundations of history’s two greatest biologists: Aristotle and Charles Darwin. Historians and philosophers often portray these two giants as diametrically opposed in their approach to the study of life. But were they? In this talk, he provides a novel answer to that ...
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May 6, 2025 • 59 mins
https://youtu.be/sNtIs4UmXns
Podcast audio:
The most pernicious ideas are often injected into the culture by the method of “package-dealing” — the attempt to integrate the unintegratable. Expanding on previous material he has presented on this subject, Mr. Peter Schwartz offers a more advanced analysis of the mechanics of the package-deal. He addresses such questions as: Can the same word stand for both a valid concept a...
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