The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast

Distinguishing speech from force is essential to eradicating violence in America.

Rising authoritarian currents in America make truth and reason more urgent than ever.

Forcing business to bow to non-objective laws violates America’s individualist ideals.

In a newly uncovered recording, Ayn Rand explains why Atlas Shrugged is not a prophecy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6vA9ensrzw Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Nikos Sotirakopoulos critique a recent Wall Street Journal article that tries to explain Zohran Mamdani’s rise and the persistence of socialism in American politics. Among the topics covered: Why socialism is not an innate impulse or the product of ignorance of history; Why idealism alone does not explain socialism’s popularity; How miseducation about capitalism contributes to the endurance of socialism; Why you can’t fight woke ideology while upholding Christianity’s altruistic ethic; How to defeat socialism. Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, her article “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Socialism, and Bayer’s articles “The Dishonesty of ‘Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried’” and “The Old Morality of the New Religions.” The podcast was recorded on August 25, 2025, and posted on August 28, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOadbwUP5s Podcast audio: America is a country that prizes freedom and the rule of law. Yet every day, we hear news of ICE raids on construction sites, Venezuelans shipped to foreign prisons without hearings, and sports tattoos treated as proof of criminality. As Agustina Vergara Cid warns in “Immigration Enforcement and the Betrayal of Due Process,” Americans have been turning a blind eye to this lawless, even authoritarian treatment. Delivered at the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, her talk is now available online. While the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has made the headlines recently, Vergara Cid shows that the same lawlessness has spanned decades. The Obama administration, notorious for its record deportations, simply carried forward policies Congress had long codified. Trump’s crackdowns threaten to further erode due process, which Vergara Cid identifies as the crucial legal safeguard which “stands between you and authoritarianism.” Today’s victims are peaceful immigrants; tomorrow, the target could be any American who dares to challenge the state. Among the topics covered: The immigration crackdown’s flagrant violation of due process; Why everyone should care about due process; How our authoritarian immigration system became normalized; How, despite the bleak reality, America still welcomes immigrants. (Since recording, the men sent to El Salvador’s CECOT were released to Venezuela in a prisoner swap on July 18, 2025, after four months of imprisonment. Several now allege torture, and at least one alleges sexual assault.) This podcast was recorded live on July 5th in Boston, MA as part of OCON 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wig7ja6GLlU Podcast audio In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Elan Journo, Nikos Sotirakopoulos, and Tristan De Liège explore how altruism clouds moral clarity about the Israel-Hamas war, undermining Israel’s righteous cause and whitewashing Hamas’ evil.  Among the topics covered: How the media coverage of the war has become egregiously deferential to Hamas and Hezbollah; How altruism corrupts journalism by distorting moral judgment; Why media deception deliberately aims to manipulate emotions; The nature of Hamas’s totalitarian ideology; Why genocide claims flout serious thinking about innocents in war; How altruism cripples Israel's moral confidence in its cause. Recommended in this podcast is Elan Journo's book What Justice Demands: America and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This podcast was recorded on August 13, 2025, and posted on August 21, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwT-unSQu_8 Podcast audio: In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Samantha Watkins and Ben Bayer tackle the common criticism that Ayn Rand is "anti-family" and analyze its philosophical roots. They examine claims that Rand's novels omit discussions of having children and explore what her actual views on parenting reveal about living a rational, selfish life. Among the topics covered: ● Debunking the notion that Rand ignores children and parenting;● Rand’s actual view on children and parenting;● How choosing to be a parent can be a rational value;● Why parenting doesn't require sacrifice;● Why "fertility crisis" concerns don't justify treating individuals as means to societal ends. Recommended in this podcast are Gregory Salmieri's lecture "Reproduction and the Objectivist Ethics" and Ben Bayer's article "The Fountainhead and the Spirit of Youth." This podcast was recorded July 30, 2025 and posted on August 14, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky3VGO4AI-g Podcast audio: In this episode of The ARI Bookshelf, Tristan de Liège, Ben Bayer, Don Watkins, and Robertas Bakula discuss What Went Wrong with Capitalism by Ruchir Sharma. The book examines the history of government bailouts, Federal Reserve policy, and the growing reach of the regulatory state. Contrary to popular belief, Sharma argues, government intervention in America didn’t shrink after Reagan — it kept growing. He also offers proposals for reversing these trends. The discussion covered: How Sharma refutes the myth that America has moved towards free markets in the last fifty years; How the government and the Federal Reserve created distortions and downturns; How the regulatory state expanded and decreased productivity; Why the book’s treatment of inequality is self-defeating; How the book’s views on capital misallocation and antitrust are contradictory; How the book lacks sufficient philosophical perspective. The video was recorded on July 17, 2025 and posted on August 8, 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7PICSLkhc Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Agustina Vergara Cid take a wide-ranging look at abortion bans since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, examining their destructive effects on the lives and freedoms of women and medical professionals. Among the topics covered: Ayn Rand’s distinctive defense of abortion rights; How abortion bans have impaired women’s lives; How anti-abortion laws impose arbitrary constraints against sound medical judgment; The unfortunate rise of pregnancy-related prosecutions; How abortion restrictions jeopardize doctors' freedom and careers; Why signs of resistance show abortion bans can be reversed; Evidence that the anti-abortion movement is motivated by a dark anti-sex agenda. Recommended in this podcast are the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Abortion, Bayer’s book “Why the Right to Abortion Is Sacrosanct,” and his article “The Dark Form of Control Even Anti-Abortion ‘Moderates’ Want.” The podcast was recorded on July 28, 2025 and posted on August 9, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33MpmtvMKs0 Podcast audio: In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Marek Michulka and Onkar Ghate examine the Trump administration's actions against CBS — including a billion-dollar lawsuit and FCC investigation — and argue that the FCC’s regulatory power is incompatible with free speech.  Among the topics covered: How Trump's actions against CBS are targeting them for their content; How censorship in a free country relies on self-censorship; Why many critics of Trump’s actions miss the essential issue; How antitrust is being used to force editorial rooms to cater to the whims of bureaucrats; Why the realm of ideas can’t be separated from the realm of production and trade; How elite universities’ “public interest” rhetoric opened the door to government control; What the future holds. Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand's essay “Have Gun, Will Nudge,” her talk “Censorship: Local and Express,” and her novel, especially Part II Chapter 5.  This podcast was recorded on June 11, 2025 and posted on July 31, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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: Why Ayn Rand saw business as central to her moral defense of capitalism; The philosophical roots of today’s anti-business culture; How most people ignore the hard thinking that goes into business; Why understanding the morality of the profit motive is essential to standing up for business; The role of intellectuals in fostering a pro-business culture. Recommended in this podcast are the Atlas Circle’s manifesto, “Profit Without Apology: The Need to Stand Up for Business,” the title essay of the book Profit Without Apology. The podcast was recorded on July 22, 2025 and posted on July 24, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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” by C. Bradley Thompson; “Enlightenment on Trial: The Real Lessons of the American and French Revolutions” by Don Watkins; “Saving the Enlightenment” by Onkar Ghate; “The Road to Fascism (And Are We on It?)” by Nikos Sotirakopoulos; “Immigration Enforcement and the Betrayal of Due Process” by Agustina Vergara Cid; “Principles of a Proper Foreign Policy” by Peter Schwartz; “America Should Declare Independence from Altruism” by Ben Bayer; “Conceiving Values” by Greg Salmieri. In addition, we have published two full-length lectures from the conference: Tal Tsfany’s annual address to ARI supporters, covering the Institute’s progress over the past year and its plans for the future; and Ben Bayer’s Independence Day talk, “America Should Declare Independence from Altruism.”

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. At the heart of this expansion are major advances in ARI’s educational offerings. Tsfany announced that ARI is ahead of schedule in pursuing accreditation for a Master of Arts in Objectivist Studies, aiming to become an accredited university by 2028. Meanwhile, the new ARI Live Courses program will offer quarterly classes at dramatically reduced prices. And a newly launched Intellectual Incubator will help students develop as intellectual entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, ARI is scaling its cultural outreach. The Books for Teachers program aims to distribute 500,000 books annually by 2026 utilizing a  streamlined ordering system. Supporting this outreach is a new AI-enabled Institute website launching this fall, which will provide personalized learning tracks for 750,000 annual visitors. To further Rand’s vision of an alliance between businessmen and intellectuals, ARI launched the Atlas Circle, invitation-only intellectual retreats bringing together leading businessmen and Objectivist thinkers. The Circle's first publication, Profit Without Apology: The Need to Stand Up for Business, calls on productive businessmen to push back against moral vilification. ARI’s crowning project will be the Ayn Rand Center in Austin, TX, opening September 2, 2028. In addition to improved archival storage for the Ayn Rand Archives, the center will feature a cutting-edge interactive introduction to Rand’s novels, the Ayn Rand Immersive Experience. As Tsfany emphasized, these bold initiatives represent the unity of thought and action that Rand envisioned, scaled for our time. To learn more about ARI's efforts to fight for your values, watch Tal Tsfany's 2025 OCON talk.

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. What would it take to achieve such a transformation? On Independence Day at the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, ARI fellow Ben Bayer took up this question in his provocative talk, “America Should Declare Independence from Altruism.” Bayer argues that it is not enough just to affirm the morality of self-interest in words. Most people — even those who claim to support liberty — remain psychologically dependent on the morality of self-sacrifice and so are unwilling to defend freedom on principle. To illustrate this dependency, Bayer offers an in-depth case study of the COVID lockdowns. He reminds us that these policies were imposed not just by Democrats but also by Republicans, the alleged defenders of American freedom. Republican leaders were cowed by moral pressure to impose shutdowns but have now worked hard to memory-hole their involvement. Bayer argues that Republicans’ evasion of their own commitment to altruism dramatized underappreciated insights from Ayn Rand’s views on the psychology of altruism.  One of Bayer’s most thought-provoking points is that the common pejorative use of the term “virtue signaling” reveals a lingering psychological dependence on altruism: critics mock those who merely signal “virtue” because they are unwilling to challenge the content of the signalers’ moral beliefs directly. In the Q&A period, Bayer addresses such topics as: How altruism shaped America’s post-9/11 foreign policy; Whether sweeping lockdowns can ever be justified; The enduring relevance of Rand’s idea of the sanction of the victim; The problems with the concept of “woke.”

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 raids are used to terrorize businesses and hard-working immigrants; How the Trump administration's visa rollback reveals its affinity for central planning; Why arbitrary immigration enforcement threatens to cripple every major American industry; Why supporting American business means defending the freedom to hire and trade. Recommended in this podcast are Vergara Cid’s article “Immigration Regulations Strangle American Businesses,” her OCON 2023 talk “The Immorality of the U.S. Immigration System,” and Bayer’s article “Ayn Rand on Free Trade, the ‘Essence of Capitalism’s Foreign Policy’.” The podcast was recorded on June 23, 2025 and posted on July 2, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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 parental freedom; Why parents, not the government, should invest in education; Why the school choice movement should refocus its arguments on parental rights; How bureaucratic accountability measures undermine school choice efforts; Why Rand’s tax credit proposal is better than a voucher system; The worst thing about the public school system; Rand's influence on Bateman's approach to parenting and education. Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand's essays "Tax Credits for Education," "The Comprachicos," and "Art and Moral Treason." This podcast was recorded Jun 3, 2025 and posted on June 26, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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 the legacy of 9/11; The Minnesota assassinations How political violence is becoming a broader cultural trend; How political violence is a tribal phenomenon. The podcast was recorded on June 19, 2025 and posted on June 20, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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 offer insights into Rand’s creative process; David Bakker’s talk, “Newton Versus Descartes on the Exactness of Mathematics,” which will examine how their contrasting views on mathematical precision shaped the development of modern science; Ben Bayer’s talk, “America Should Declare Independence from Altruism,” which will argue that America’s responses to 9/11 and Covid reflect a deep-rooted evasion of altruism’s moral flaws; Don Watkins’ talk, “Enlightenment on Trial: The Real Lessons of the American and French Revolutions,” which will challenge conventional narratives about both revolutions to reframe how we understand the Enlightenment’s true legacy. Registration is open for both in-person and virtual conference passes. The podcast was recorded on June 9, 2025 and posted on June 11, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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 right to peaceably assemble does not imply a right to mass protest; The bad jurisprudence that supports the alleged right to mass protest; The lawlessness of Trump’s immigration policies; What a proper response to Trump’s lawless immigration policy looks like. Recommended in this podcast are The Ayn Rand Lexicon’s entry on free speech, Ghate and Bayer’s article “Ending Campus Protests Protects Free Speech,” and Bayer’s article “The Specter of Lawlessness Is Darker than You Think.” The podcast was recorded on June 9, 2025 and posted on June 11, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.