The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast

The Enlightenment, not Christianity, is the key to the West.

The recognition of a Palestinian state betrays good and rewards evil.

Intimidating broadcasters with the “public interest” standard is a worse abridgement of free speech than censorship.

Business leaders need to stand up for themselves before it's too late.

Distinguishing speech from force is essential to eradicating violence in America.

Rising authoritarian currents in America make truth and reason more urgent than ever.

Forcing business to bow to non-objective laws violates America’s individualist ideals.

In a newly uncovered recording, Ayn Rand explains why Atlas Shrugged is not a prophecy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6vA9ensrzw Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Nikos Sotirakopoulos critique a recent Wall Street Journal article that tries to explain Zohran Mamdani’s rise and the persistence of socialism in American politics. Among the topics covered: Why socialism is not an innate impulse or the product of ignorance of history; Why idealism alone does not explain socialism’s popularity; How miseducation about capitalism contributes to the endurance of socialism; Why you can’t fight woke ideology while upholding Christianity’s altruistic ethic; How to defeat socialism. Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, her article “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Socialism, and Bayer’s articles “The Dishonesty of ‘Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried’” and “The Old Morality of the New Religions.” The podcast was recorded on August 25, 2025, and posted on August 28, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOadbwUP5s Podcast audio: America is a country that prizes freedom and the rule of law. Yet every day, we hear news of ICE raids on construction sites, Venezuelans shipped to foreign prisons without hearings, and sports tattoos treated as proof of criminality. As Agustina Vergara Cid warns in “Immigration Enforcement and the Betrayal of Due Process,” Americans have been turning a blind eye to this lawless, even authoritarian treatment. Delivered at the 2025 Objectivist Summer Conference, her talk is now available online. While the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has made the headlines recently, Vergara Cid shows that the same lawlessness has spanned decades. The Obama administration, notorious for its record deportations, simply carried forward policies Congress had long codified. Trump’s crackdowns threaten to further erode due process, which Vergara Cid identifies as the crucial legal safeguard which “stands between you and authoritarianism.” Today’s victims are peaceful immigrants; tomorrow, the target could be any American who dares to challenge the state. Among the topics covered: The immigration crackdown’s flagrant violation of due process; Why everyone should care about due process; How our authoritarian immigration system became normalized; How, despite the bleak reality, America still welcomes immigrants. (Since recording, the men sent to El Salvador’s CECOT were released to Venezuela in a prisoner swap on July 18, 2025, after four months of imprisonment. Several now allege torture, and at least one alleges sexual assault.) This podcast was recorded live on July 5th in Boston, MA as part of OCON 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.