Ayn Rand Special
Host: Jerry Adams
Tonight Jerry focuses on author Ayn Rand who wrote Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Rand’s political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-fare capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government.
She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism,including fascism, communism, socialism, and the welfare state,and promoted ethical egoism while rejecting the ethic of altruism.
She considered reason to be the only means of acquiring knowledge and the most important aspect of her philosophy,stating, “I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.”
Videos and Links:
Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged
Video: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (47.7MB)
Video: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview
In this engaging 1959 interview, her first on television, Ayn Rand capsulizes her philosophy for CBS’s Mike Wallace. The discussion ranges from the nature of morality to the economic and historical distortions disseminated about the “robber barons.” She also comments on her relationship with Frank O’Connor, provides some autobiographical information and gives her perspective on the future of America.
