Ayn Rand: A Leading Lady of the Classical Liberal Tradition

Students: Get a full week of this at an IHS Summer Seminar - http://lrnlbty.co/AC0k2g

How should we understand Ayn Rand's political thought? Prof. Jennifer Burns argues that Rand was a part of the broad classical liberal tradition. Rand's novels, including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, emphasize individualism, a fundamental theme in classical liberal/libertarian thought. Rand also contributed to that tradition by modernizing and popularizing the ideas, which lead to the creation of new social movements for freedom in the 20th century.

Jennifer Burns is an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia and author of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. For more information, visit http://www.jenniferburns.org/.

Watch more videos: http://lrnlbty.co/y5tTcY

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Ayn Rand
• Atlas Shrugged
• classical
• liberalism
• libertarianism
• objectivism
• individualism
• history
• power
• learn
• liberty
• ihs
• institute for humane studies
• video
• freedom
• learn liberty
• Liberty

[ScionAscendant]

@scienceatheism As I said to someone else, I don't see her using social insurance (which she paid into for all the time she was in the US) as being any more hypocritical than paying income taxes or using public roads. The point isn't that anyone who uses those programs is bad, in my view, but that the programs themselves are bad. If she had a choice to opt out of those programs and use the earnings she would normally have kept for her own care, then she would be a hypocrite. That's my opinion.

[TWSceptic]

More retards than intelligent have voted, US is doomed.

[vic5201992]

@locomuchacho1 its Ayn Rand their are people that this love to hate her

its what happen then one person can destroy your argument. hater will some

[locomuchacho1]

Why dislikes so much?

[bkolban]

Objectivism is not a part of "classical liberal tradition". In fact everything with the root liber- is corrupt. Libertarians are more like libertines, unable to grasp the full picture. Besides, Rand herself explained why she is not a libertarian, nor could be categorized as one. Ignoring this is a glaring incomprehension of abstract categories.

[rzxwm10]

@whitelabrat agreed, the govt needs to stop these easy money policy.

[rzxwm10]

@whitelabrat Govt is what allowed these financial crises to occur. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe almost all the European nation is a debtor nation. Greece is doom to collapse due to its monetary policy. Prolonging the inevitable will only make it worse. No amount of money injection will save it. The excessive printing of Greece currency is one of the cause for the crisis.

[rzxwm10]

@whitelabrat Yes, those are all bad too. Except for the "subsidizing tax breaks," that phrase doesn't make sense. A subsidy takes money from one sector and give it to another. A tax break allows you to keep the money that you've earned; there is no transfer of money.

[whitelabrat]

@rzxwm10 And if you are worried about US spending look at where we waste money not where we spend it legitimately. We waste astounding amounts paying private contractors, subsidizing tax breaks, over spending on the military, and bailing out banks. For what the bank bail out cost we could have paid off every home loan in the US and it would have done much much more to make the economy stable in the long run. And prosperous for whom? The already rich? No thanks I am done being screwed by them.

[whitelabrat]

@rzxwm10 But Greece does not have another way out. The measures the rest of the EU wants them to implement will destroy their social structure and government to pay off debit that most economists agree can't humanly be payed by a nation that size. In fact insisting on this will very likely destroy the EU also but the banks who finance the EU don't care as long as they get paid. Greece's entire economic system will rest and their government will do nothing to stop it.

[whitelabrat]

@rzxwm10 When your government goes bankrupt completely due to the greed of those who take it over it, then your economy resets. It is brutal, harsh, and people die and it happens all the time even to advanced nations. Germany did it 2 times last century with wars and other nations managed it without war. They just reset their currency. Greece is headed there now. There will be riots and possibly civil war. Starvation. Lack of medical care. My family has see it twice last century.

[rzxwm10]

@whitelabrat When if ever in history of this world did the govt voluntarily give up its control over the people? When govt is too involved, corporatism is the result. That is what we have in the US today. I believe there is a base line role for regulation, but the level today inhibit competition and innovation. The most economically free countries are also the most prosperous. The US treat honest savings and discretionary spending as a joke.