Ayn Rand's characters are complex projections of human psychology that require of the reader great depth of understanding. Unfortunately...
The Letters of Ayn Rand. Edited by Michael S. Berliner, Introduction by Leonard Peikoff. New York: Dutton, 1995. 681 pp. including index.
Five years after the fall of communism, the people of Eastern Europe enjoy more freedom than they have known for decades. In most countries
Summary: Public concern about a moral decline in our society is rooted in two issues: irresponsible behavior and a perceived loss of meaning
Nathaniel Branden began writing and talking about self-esteem long before it became au courant to do so in educational, therapeutic, and....
In this third of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway discusses specific means of pursuing the basic goals of foreign policy: intelligence, free trade, and security. Part One: Rethinking Foreign Policy Part Two: Rethinking Foreign Policy In my last article, I mentioned three broad areas of foreign policy and spoke of the general goals that ought to dominate them. Those areas were: intelligence, trade, and national security. I said that intelligence should seek to inform policy-makers thoroughly about the foreign states with which they have to deal, not only the political-military characteristics of those states but also the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. I suggested that trade policy ought to aim at a Free World commercial alliance. And I recommended that national security policy ought to aim at a Free World security alliance. In this article, I would like to discuss some of the principles that I believe would serve as appropriate guides to those ends.
In this second of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway discusses the fundamental goals of a proper foreign policy: promotion of free trade, and alliances among free countries as a bulwark of security. Part One: Rethinking Foreign Policy Part Three: "Rethinking Foreign Policy" A foreign policy comprises the principles that a government adopts towards other states and their citizens. Libertarians and Objectivists often assume that a free state’s foreign policy is merely a global analogue of its domestic criminal code or public law (prohibiting murder, theft, and so forth). In my last article, I argued that this was mistaken. At the least, I said, a foreign policy must also have a counterpart to the domestic civil code or private law (dealing with contract, negligence, and so forth). But more basically, I argued, the circumstances surrounding a state’s foreign affairs are completely different from the circumstances surrounding its domestic activities- so different that the analogy between domestic law and foreign policy can never be more than limited. The reason, I pointed out, is that a state operating within its own territory has a de jure monopoly on the use of force and a de facto monopoly on the use of large scale force. Internationally, the situation of one state vis-à-vis another is more like anarchy. To discover the principles appropriate to such a situation, I concluded, we must look back to the national motives for government, and see how they apply in this situation.
While the challenges of foreign policy change over time, the principles do not. In this first of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway highlights the difference between government’s role in domestic and international affairs. Part 2 of "Rethinking Foreign Policy Part 3 of "Rethinking Foreign Policy During the almost 50 years of the cold war, most Americans grasped that Moscow was the sworn enemy of the United States and had to be opposed. By focusing on that single truth, U.S. foreign policy maintained a rough coherence—although it was riddled with pragmatism, altruism, and compromise. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, this organizing truth of U.S. foreign policy has vanished. The elements of national self-interest that inhered in America's anti-Soviet posture, and thereby leavened all of the country's foreign policy, have diminished greatly, and the formerly diluting elements of pragmatism, altruism, and compromise have become the policy's main theme. The results can be seen around the world, in the actions and inactions of the post-cold war Bush and Clinton administrations.
Robert James Bidinotto, who writes about crime, environmentalism, and other topics for Reader's Digest and other publications, addressed the
A cardinal principle of the Objectivist ethics is that, in Ayn Rand’s words, “productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s
When a beautiful woman tells me she can't stop pulling out her hair—and that has happened—and a man with emphysema insists he can't stop
Description: Matthew Josephson’s 1934 best-seller, The Robber Barons, with its damning portraits of great industrialists and Marxist analysi
Along with the movies it makes, some good, some not, Hollywood spews out an unending stream of goofy left-wing political sentiments. Attacki
Most of the great philosophers in history never set out their entire system of ideas in a single treatise. They were explorers; their
Metaphysically, we know, man is capable of surviving on his own, something which is apparently not true of ants, termites, and some other...
Editor's Note: This article, from 1991, references "The institute." The Atlas Society was orginially founded as the Institute for Objectivist Studies. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. -Arthur Hugh Clough June 1, 1991 -- Ideas are the primary source of a society's culture and political life, and we look to intellectual change as the path to freedom, individualism, and a culture in which our values will be honored. History throws this connection into bold relief. With the accuracy of hindsight, and a vantage point that lets us take in centuries at a sweep, we observe how the ideas that flourished in the Renaissance and Age of Reason led to the Enlightenment and its political reforms, and then to the Industrial Revolution.
Description: Richard Grenier’s book Capturing the Culture skewers the anti-Enlightenment ideas embodied in many popular films.
Skepticism is the belief that knowledge of reality is impossible and that man lacks any rational basis for certainty or confidence in what..
A cardinal principle of Objectivist metaphysics is the primacy of existence which asserts that there is one objective world, which exists...
Part 4 of at the Young Women's Leadership Summit in Dallas last week ends with our interview with Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman.
Ayn Rand's characters are complex projections of human psychology that require of the reader great depth of understanding. Unfortunately...
The Letters of Ayn Rand. Edited by Michael S. Berliner, Introduction by Leonard Peikoff. New York: Dutton, 1995. 681 pp. including index.
Five years after the fall of communism, the people of Eastern Europe enjoy more freedom than they have known for decades. In most countries
Summary: Public concern about a moral decline in our society is rooted in two issues: irresponsible behavior and a perceived loss of meaning
Nathaniel Branden began writing and talking about self-esteem long before it became au courant to do so in educational, therapeutic, and....
In this third of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway discusses specific means of pursuing the basic goals of foreign policy: intelligence, free trade, and security. Part One: Rethinking Foreign Policy Part Two: Rethinking Foreign Policy In my last article, I mentioned three broad areas of foreign policy and spoke of the general goals that ought to dominate them. Those areas were: intelligence, trade, and national security. I said that intelligence should seek to inform policy-makers thoroughly about the foreign states with which they have to deal, not only the political-military characteristics of those states but also the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. I suggested that trade policy ought to aim at a Free World commercial alliance. And I recommended that national security policy ought to aim at a Free World security alliance. In this article, I would like to discuss some of the principles that I believe would serve as appropriate guides to those ends.
In this second of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway discusses the fundamental goals of a proper foreign policy: promotion of free trade, and alliances among free countries as a bulwark of security. Part One: Rethinking Foreign Policy Part Three: "Rethinking Foreign Policy" A foreign policy comprises the principles that a government adopts towards other states and their citizens. Libertarians and Objectivists often assume that a free state’s foreign policy is merely a global analogue of its domestic criminal code or public law (prohibiting murder, theft, and so forth). In my last article, I argued that this was mistaken. At the least, I said, a foreign policy must also have a counterpart to the domestic civil code or private law (dealing with contract, negligence, and so forth). But more basically, I argued, the circumstances surrounding a state’s foreign affairs are completely different from the circumstances surrounding its domestic activities- so different that the analogy between domestic law and foreign policy can never be more than limited. The reason, I pointed out, is that a state operating within its own territory has a de jure monopoly on the use of force and a de facto monopoly on the use of large scale force. Internationally, the situation of one state vis-à-vis another is more like anarchy. To discover the principles appropriate to such a situation, I concluded, we must look back to the national motives for government, and see how they apply in this situation.
While the challenges of foreign policy change over time, the principles do not. In this first of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway highlights the difference between government’s role in domestic and international affairs. Part 2 of "Rethinking Foreign Policy Part 3 of "Rethinking Foreign Policy During the almost 50 years of the cold war, most Americans grasped that Moscow was the sworn enemy of the United States and had to be opposed. By focusing on that single truth, U.S. foreign policy maintained a rough coherence—although it was riddled with pragmatism, altruism, and compromise. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, this organizing truth of U.S. foreign policy has vanished. The elements of national self-interest that inhered in America's anti-Soviet posture, and thereby leavened all of the country's foreign policy, have diminished greatly, and the formerly diluting elements of pragmatism, altruism, and compromise have become the policy's main theme. The results can be seen around the world, in the actions and inactions of the post-cold war Bush and Clinton administrations.
Robert James Bidinotto, who writes about crime, environmentalism, and other topics for Reader's Digest and other publications, addressed the
A cardinal principle of the Objectivist ethics is that, in Ayn Rand’s words, “productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s
When a beautiful woman tells me she can't stop pulling out her hair—and that has happened—and a man with emphysema insists he can't stop
Description: Matthew Josephson’s 1934 best-seller, The Robber Barons, with its damning portraits of great industrialists and Marxist analysi
Along with the movies it makes, some good, some not, Hollywood spews out an unending stream of goofy left-wing political sentiments. Attacki
Most of the great philosophers in history never set out their entire system of ideas in a single treatise. They were explorers; their
Metaphysically, we know, man is capable of surviving on his own, something which is apparently not true of ants, termites, and some other...
Editor's Note: This article, from 1991, references "The institute." The Atlas Society was orginially founded as the Institute for Objectivist Studies. And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. -Arthur Hugh Clough June 1, 1991 -- Ideas are the primary source of a society's culture and political life, and we look to intellectual change as the path to freedom, individualism, and a culture in which our values will be honored. History throws this connection into bold relief. With the accuracy of hindsight, and a vantage point that lets us take in centuries at a sweep, we observe how the ideas that flourished in the Renaissance and Age of Reason led to the Enlightenment and its political reforms, and then to the Industrial Revolution.
Description: Richard Grenier’s book Capturing the Culture skewers the anti-Enlightenment ideas embodied in many popular films.
Skepticism is the belief that knowledge of reality is impossible and that man lacks any rational basis for certainty or confidence in what..
A cardinal principle of Objectivist metaphysics is the primacy of existence which asserts that there is one objective world, which exists...
Part 4 of at the Young Women's Leadership Summit in Dallas last week ends with our interview with Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman.