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It Makes Guns Louder, but ATF Says It's a Silencer

The ATF is being sued for a decision only slightly more reasonable. Gun maker Sig Sauer created a product called a “muzzle brake,” which

Apr 25, 2014

2 Mins

Bitcoin and the Ayn Rand Imagination

Bitcoin is a digital money sweeping the world and offering some degree of freedom from government currencies. It imitates the scarcity of...

Apr 24, 2014

5 Mins

Pope Francis: Beware of Earth Day Thinking

Pope Francis’s Easter message included a prayer to “Help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense

Apr 22, 2014

Eddie Hudgins

3 Mins

Suing Disney over Wait Times Takes Time. Why Is That Legal?

If the lawsuit over keeping disabled people waiting at Disney theme parks has merit, it should have been won already. The courts have kept

Apr 18, 2014

3 Mins

Trade as Mutual Respect

Two scenes from Atlas Shrugged Part 1 illustrate Ayn Rand’s principle that when people engage in voluntary trade, exchanging value for value, they are treating each other not “as masters or slaves, but as independent equals”—the highest form of human respect.

In a dramatic scene from Atlas Shrugged Part 2 , Hank Rearden tells a pragmatic young bureaucrat, “Try pouring a ton of steel without rigid principles.” His remark expresses Ayn Rand’s profound insight about the role of principles in human life, from science and technology to ethics and politics.

Apr 15, 2014

David Kelley, Ph.D.

7 mins

Dagny confronts James

This scene, in which Dagny Taggart confronts her brother James about the need to upgrade a rail line, illustrates the difference between her rationality and his second-hand thinking. Dagny is focused on facts as she deals with the reality of a train wreck; James is focused on the opinions of other people.

In the famous “money speech,” Francisco d’Anconia responds to of the Biblical statement "money is the root of all evil" by explaining the real essence of money. Money is a medium of exchange, the means by which people trade value for value. And it represents the fact that wealth must be created by production.

Apr 15, 2014

David Kelley, Ph.D.

7 mins

Rearden And His Dependents

Early in Atlas Shrugged Part 1 , Hank Rearden has two conversations that illustrate the conflict between makers and takers. Hank made his wealth by creating value in his business. His dependent brother Phillip is a taker, self-righteously asking for charity; as are the politicians and crony capitalists who seize wealth by force.

Apr 15, 2014

David Kelley, Ph.D.

7 mins

Rearden Metal is not for sale

When Hank Rearden rejects a government offer to buy the rights to his new metal, his refusal highlights the profound difference between his

Apr 15, 2014

2 Mins

The Trial of Hank Rearden

When Hank Rearden is put on trial for violating a government regulation imposed on his business, he invokes the principle that individuals are ends in themselves, with the moral right to pursue their own lives and well-being—including the right to run his by business by the judgment of his own mind and to keep the fruits of his labor.

When the “Equalization of Opportunity” bill forces Hank Rearden to sell off most of his companies, we see why property rights are essential human rights. Together with rights of contract, they allow everyone, including successful producers like Hank, to make rational, long-range plans.

Karl Marx’s principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is not a moral ideal, as many people have believed. It is flagrantly unjust, a prescription for chaining the individual to the collective and forcing the sacrifice of all to all.

A series of scenes from Part 1 illustrate Ayn Rand’s view of the unity of mind and body, the spiritual and the material, both in work and in love. That theme is illustrated by the contrast between the two women in Hank Rearden’s life: Dagny Taggart, his business partner who becomes his lover, and his wife Lillian.

Apr 15, 2014

David Kelley, Ph.D.

7 mins

Force and Mind are Opposites

Premier coal producer Ken Danagger explains to Dagny Taggart why he is quitting his business. The government has imposed onerous regulations on him, and is now threatening to imprison him for an honest business deal with Hank Rearden.

Apr 15, 2014

David Kelley, Ph.D.

7 mins

Grover Norquist endorses book on GOP civil war

The GOP is adrift and in intellectual disarray. In this uneasy coalition of three factions are: traditional limited-government conservatives

Apr 15, 2014

4 Mins

Is Taxation Slavery? Reflections on Passover and Tax Time

Passover—the only Jewish holiday I’ve honored throughout my decades as an atheist —celebrates the mythic liberation of my ancestors from....

Apr 14, 2014

A. R. Cohen

2 Mins