Discover the principles behind living a happy, thriving, free life.

Ayn Rand is America’s most controversial individualist. She was a bold woman who produced brilliant works fusing fiction and philosophy. Her best-selling novels, like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, continue to sell in the millions of copies worldwide. Learn more about her ideas by selecting a reading list below.

Reading Lists

Foundations

Recent Posts

The Return of the Flagellants

The lockdowns have disproportionately targeted fun. No house parties. No travel. Bowling, bars, Broadway, theater, amusement parks, all banned. Weddings, forget it. Restaurants, hotels, conventions, and even golf were all targeted by the lockdowners.

Oct 26, 2020

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Jeffrey A. Tucker

The Aristocracy of Pull

At first glance, a lot of the social problems and resource waste emerging from government intervention seem pretty easy to fix: the government should just stop doing whatever it is doing that is creating the problems and the waste. The stubborn persistence of institutions and organizations that keep societies poor is a vexing problem for social scientists. In Political Capitalism, the economist Randall Holcombe takes on this problem by analyzing “political capitalism” as a distinct economic system with its own logic and features rather than as some kind of midpoint between capitalism and socialism.

Sep 28, 2020

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Art Carden

Are Lockdowns an Election-Year Ransom Note?

"We don’t realistically anticipate that we would be moving to either tier 2 or reopening K-12 schools at least until after the election, in early November.” Those are the words of a west coast health director. No in-person schooling until after the election? Hmmm.Please think about what was said. It reads as kind of a ransom note. Vote for science-reverent candidate Joe Biden, or else….

Sep 21, 2020

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John Tamny

Those Who Destroy Art

Sep 15, 2020

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Michael Newberry

Small Signs of Hope that Lockdowns Could Soon End

For so many months, it’s been nonstop bad news on business closures, arts trashed, museum shuttering, unemployment, missed surgeries and diagnostics, plus rising loneliness, drug overdoses, depression, and suicide. Every day has been as dark or darker than the previous one.

Member Spotlight: Rodrigo Hernandez Mirajes

“She was a dangerous woman.”That was the impression Rodrigo Hernandez Mirajes had about Ayn Rand in college. “It was as if she was on a list of banned books,” he recalls. Teachers also dismissed Adam Smith as a crazy, old, white man.

Sep 1, 2020

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5 mins

The Bloodless Political Class and Its Lack of Empathy

Why watch COVID press conferences and briefings by politicians? They are just upsetting. These people seem to have no clue about why the virus is ignoring them. They keep issuing strange and arbitrary rules that they make up, change by the day, all enforced by intimidation and compulsion.

In Memory of Frank Bond

We are deeply sad to learn that Frank Bond died July 26, age 86, at his home. Frank was a long-time, generous supporter of The Atlas Society.

How Ayn Rand's Dystopian Novella Anticipated Cancel Culture by Caroline Breashers

Recent legislators, activists, and education reformers have promised to lead us into a new world of equity. No longer will some groups have