Reason Foundation Co-Founder Bob Poole on Ayn Rand

Robert W. Poole Jr. was one of the founders of Reason Enterprises, which began publishing Reason with its January 1971 issue (the magazine had started in 1968, under the direction of Lanny Friedlander).

He co-founded the nonprofit Reason Foundation in 1978 with Manny Klausner and Tibor Machan and has held many titles with the magazine, including editor, managing editor, executive editor, editor-in-chief, and publisher. He remains on the board of the Reason Foundation today and is the Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy.

"Rand really inspired a lot of people who otherwise might have become conservatives, like me," says Poole. "If you go back and look at surveys that were done of libertarians in the 1960s, '70s, and even the '80s, and asked what single book or thought leader most inspired you to become a libertarian, it was always Rand by a large large majority—always a plurality and usually a majority."

Approximately six minutes. Interview by Michael C. Moynihan, camera by Dan Hayes, and editing by Hawk Jensen.

This is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand.

Watch the first part of the series, Rand-O-Rama: The Long Shelf Life of Ayn Rand at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqNV6tNH5c

Watch a promo trailer for the series at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqNV6tNH5c

Go to http://reason.tv for more information and downloadable versions of all videos.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ayn rand
• rand
• atlas shrugged
• fountainhead
• objectivism
• libertarians
• reason foundation
• reason magazine
• reason.tv
• drew carey

[Silvsilvchan]

I have to work for a boss?

Who says? The beauty of capitalism is that I can be self employed. In a serfdom or a socialist system I have a boss or I starve, that boss is the nobility or the state.

[libertarianjury]

I love this guy! He is 100% right, and I am going to renew my subscription this instant for myself and my family members! You should all do the same!

Bravo!

[dubified89]

@logtype47 Better get rid of government assistance programs then so that these assholes won't be saved!

[dubified89]

@shonstar She wasn't the first to come up with libertarian type ideas, there were many before her.

[logtype47]

Ayn Rand was a moron who thought she could survive on her own genius but when cancer threatened to wipe out the little bit of wealth she managed to put away for her old age she changed her name and applied for welfare benefits. The queen of the Libertarians, a stupid bitch preaching to the ignorant. She had a modicum of success on her own but like other so called self made successes, when she failed and she turned to the state to keep her ass off the street.

[pinstripedpants01]

Are you crazy? People become CORRUPT! Sure businesses wants profit, but they become corrupt pursuing that profit. Even in Atlas Shrugged James Taggart was corrupt. For all the Dagny Taggarts and Reardens we are surrounded by far more James Taggarts.

[shonstar]

Just goes to show you that Ayn was right about the Libertarians, at least as a movement. They use her ideas - badly handled - and yes, denigrate and insult her all the way through. If these men are the future, we're all in trouble.

[Blaseboniface]

I once met with Robert Poole Jr. when he visited Hawaii during my stint as Chairman of the Libertarian Party in Hi for 9 years. I found him to be a man of integrity and reason, but after seeing Katherine Mangu-Ward's ridiculous comments on Ron Paul, I believe Jordan Page's lyrics "The enemies of Freedom are cleverly disguised," now applies - it makes me sad to say - to Reason Magazine.

[pheromoneaction]

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