The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism, commonly known as the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), is a
501(c)(3) nonprofit
think tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
in
Santa Ana, California, that promotes
Objectivism
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievemen ...
, the philosophy developed by
Ayn Rand. The organization was established in 1985, three years after Rand's death, by
Ed Snider
Edward Malcolm Snider (January 6, 1933 – April 11, 2016) was an American business executive. He was the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Ho ...
and
Leonard Peikoff
Leonard Sylvan Peikoff (; born October 15, 1933) is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is an Objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate. He is a former professor of philosophy and host of a natio ...
, Rand's legal heir.
ARI has several educational and outreach programs, which include providing intellectuals for public appearances, supporting Objectivist campus clubs, supplying Rand's writings to schools and professors, assisting
overseas Objectivist institutions, organizing
annual conferences and running the
Objectivist Academic Center.
The institute's stated goal is to "spearhead a cultural renaissance that will reverse the anti-reason, anti-individualism, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist trends in today's culture".
History
During her lifetime, Rand helped establish The Foundation for the New Intellectual to promote Objectivist ideas. The Foundation was dissolved some fifteen years after her death, having been made redundant by ARI. Although Rand objected to Objectivism becoming an organized movement, she supported like-minded individuals working toward a common goal. Peikoff, her legal heir, was convinced to start the organization after businessman Ed Snider organized a meeting of possible financial supporters in New York in the fall of 1983. Peikoff also agreed to be the first chairman of the organization's board of directors.
In 1983, a group of Objectivists, including
George Reisman
George Gerald Reisman (; born January 13, 1937)"George Gerald Reisman" (2002), ''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, Retrieved on January 18, 2007. is an American economist. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Pepperdine University and the ...
, organized the Jefferson School of Philosophy, Economics and Politics. The Jefferson School held a two-week-long conference at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
later that year, a conference which continued to occur every two years and is the predecessor of ARI's current annual Objectivist Conference.
ARI began operations on February 1, 1985, three years after Rand's death, in
Marina del Rey, California. The first board of directors included Snider and psychologist Edith Packer. Snider was also one of the founding donors for the organization along with educational entrepreneur Carl Barney.
Its first executive director was Michael Berliner, who was previously the chairman of the Department of Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education at
California State University, Northridge. ARI also established a board of governors, which initially included
Harry Binswanger,
Robert Hessen
Robert Hessen (born 1936) is an American economic and business historian. He is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a senior research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He is an Objectivist and has ...
,
Edwin Locke
Edwin A. Locke (born May 15, 1938) is an American psychologist and a pioneer in goal-setting theory. He is a retired Dean's Professor of Motivation and Leadership at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College P ...
, Arthur Mode, George Reisman, Jay Snider, and Mary Ann Sures, with
Peter Schwartz as its chairman. M. Northrup Buechner and George Walsh joined the board of advisors shortly thereafter.
ARI's first two projects were aimed at students. One was developing a network of college clubs to study Objectivism. The other was a college scholarship contest for high-school students based on writing an essay about Rand's novel ''
The Fountainhead
''The Fountainhead'' is a 1943 novel by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, her first major literary success. The novel's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an intransigent young architect, who battles against conventional standards and refuses to comp ...
''.
Later, additional essay contests were added based on ''
Anthem'', ''
We the Living
''We the Living'' is the debut novel of the Russian American novelist Ayn Rand. It is a story of life in post-revolutionary Russia and was Rand's first statement against communism. Rand observes in the foreword that ''We the Living'' was the cl ...
'' and ''
Atlas Shrugged''.
In 1988, ARI began publishing ''Impact'', a newsletter for contributors.
In 1989, a philosophical dispute resulted in ARI ending its association with philosopher
David Kelley
David Christopher Kelley (born June 23, 1949) is an American philosopher. He is a professed Objectivist, though his position that Objectivism can be revised and influenced by other schools of thought has prompted disagreements with other Objec ...
. Some members of the board of advisors agreed with Kelley and also left, including George Walsh. Kelley subsequently founded his own competing institute now known as
The Atlas Society
The Atlas Society (TAS) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand. It is part of the Objectivist movement that split off from the Ayn Rand Institute in 1990 due to disagreements over whether Objectiv ...
, which remains critical of ARI's stance on strict loyalty to Rand's principles.
In 1994, ARI launched the Objectivist Graduate Center, which offered both distance-learning and in-person courses.
In January 2000, Berliner retired as executive director, replaced by
Yaron Brook
Yaron Brook ( he, ירון ברוק; born May 23, 1961) is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, and activist. He is an Objectivist and the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, where he was executive director from 2000 to ...
,
then an assistant professor of finance at
Santa Clara University.
Onkar Ghate began working for ARI later that year and ARI launched the Objectivist Academic Center.
In 2002, ARI moved from Marina del Rey to larger offices in
Irvine, California.
In 2003, ARI launched the Anthem Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism, a fellowship that financially supports universities who have Objectivist professors.
Charity Navigator, which rates charitable and educational organizations to inform potential donors, gives ARI two out of four stars in 2020. , ARI's board of directors consists of Brook; Tsfany;
Harry Binswanger, philosopher and long-time associate of Rand;
Tara Smith, professor of philosophy at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
; and
John Allison, board member and former CEO of the
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Ind ...
and former CEO of
BB&T
BB&T Corporation (previously known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company) was one of the largest banking and financial services firms in the United States, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2019, BB&T announced its intentions to merge ...
.; Larry Salzman of the Pacific Legal Foundation; Tim Blum, a Chicago real-estate developer; Robert Mayhew, professor of philosophy at Seton Hall University; Jim Brown, CFA; Onkar Ghate, Chief Philosophy Officer of the institute.
Peikoff retains a cooperative and influential relationship with ARI. In 2006, he remarked that he approved of the work ARI has done and in November 2010 that the executive director "has done a splendid job". Peikoff was a featured speaker at the 2007 and 2010 Objectivist Conferences. In August 2010, he demanded a change to ARI's board of directors, resulting in the resignation of John McCaskey.
A central goal for ARI throughout the 2010s has been to spread Objectivism globally. ARI helped establish the Ayn Rand Center Israel in 2012, the Ayn Rand Institute Europe in 2015 and the Ayn Rand Center Japan in 2017. Each of these organizations are separate legal entities from the United States-based ARI, but they are all affiliated with ARI.
In January 2017, ARI announced Jim Brown as its CEO, succeeding
Yaron Brook
Yaron Brook ( he, ירון ברוק; born May 23, 1961) is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, and activist. He is an Objectivist and the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, where he was executive director from 2000 to ...
as its operational executive.
In June 2018, Tal Tsfany, co-founder of the Ayn Rand Center Israel, took over as the president and CEO of ARI.
In 2020, ARI received a
Paycheck Protection Program
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a $953-billion business loan program established by the United States federal government during the Donald Trump administration in 2020 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARE ...
loan of between $350K and $1 million,
[Coster, Helen. (July 7, 2020)]
In sign of the times, Ayn Rand Institute approved for PPP loan
''Reuters''. . which Binswanger and Ghate described as "partial restitution for government-inflicted losses".
Programs
ARI runs a variety of programs, many of which are aimed at students. It sends free books to schools,
sponsors student essay contests and campus clubs and offers financial assistance to students applying to graduate school.
It also has an online bookstore, offers internships for current and recently graduated college students and provides speakers
for public lectures and media appearances.
Conferences
ARI organizes a week-long Objectivist Conference (OCON) each summer in a different city throughout the United States. OCON primarily consists of lectures, social events, and professional mentoring. Speakers have included ARI-affiliated Objectivists as well as like-minded speakers such as
Flemming Rose and
Dave Rubin
David Joshua Rubin (born in June 1976) is an American conservative political commentator and YouTuber. He is the creator and host of ''The Rubin Report'', a political talk show on YouTube and on the network BlazeTV. Launched in 2013, his show ...
.
ARI also hosts a three-day Ayn Rand Student Conference (AynRandCon) each fall, which is aimed at college and graduate school students.
Objectivist Academic Center
The Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) is an educational program that conducts online classes on Objectivism and related fields. Entry to the program requires admission after application, which requires college transcripts and admission essays. OAC does not offer college credits and is rather intended as a supplement to a college education.
International efforts
In recent years, ARI has made a concerted effort to promote Objectivism globally. Institutions affiliated with ARI in countries outside the United States are separate legal entities.
In October 2012, ARI helped establish the Ayn Rand Center Israel (ARCI) to promote Objectivism in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the Middle East.
Its current director is Boaz Arad. In 2016, ARCI launched the Atlas Award for the Best Israeli Start-up, presented annually at the
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE; ; colloquially known as The Bursa, ) is Israel's only public stock exchange and a public company that has been traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange since August 1, 2019. Legally, the exchange is regulated by ...
.
Judges for the award include Yaron Brook and
Shlomo Kalish.
Moovit
Moovit ( he, מוביט) is an Israel-based mobility as a service provider and journey planner app. It has been owned by Intel through the Mobileye subsidiary since 2020. The company uses both crowdsourced and official public transit data to pro ...
was the first recipient of the award in 2016 and Zebra Medical Vision won the award in 2017.
In April 2015, ARI helped establish the Ayn Rand Institute Europe to promote Objectivism in Europe.
The current chairman of ARI Europe is Lars Seir Christensen, CEO and co-founder of
Saxo Bank
Saxo Bank is a Danish investment bank specializing in online trading and investment. It was founded as a brokerage firm in 1992, under the name Midas Fondsmæglerselskab (English: ''Midas Stockbroker Company''), by Lars Seier Christensen, Kim F ...
.
In February 2017, ARI helped establish the Ayn Rand Center Japan. ARI has also helped establish Objectivist clubs at schools throughout the world, including in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
, the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
China.
ARI has also helped guide the independent Spain-based Objetivismo Internacional, which seeks to spread Objectivism in the
Spanish-speaking world
Hispanophone and Hispanic refers to anything relating to the Spanish language (the Hispanosphere).
In a cultural, rather than merely linguistic sense, the notion of "Hispanophone" goes further than the above definition. The Hispanic culture is th ...
.
Ideas promoted
ARI promotes Objectivism, the philosophy developed by Ayn Rand. ARI sponsors writers and speakers who apply Objectivism to contemporary issues, including philosophy, politics and art.
Since Objectivism advocates
atheism, ARI promotes the
separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
and its writers argue that the
religious right poses a threat to individual rights. They have argued against displaying religious symbols such as the
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, ''aséret ha-dvarím'', lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְ ...
in government facilities and against
faith-based initiatives
The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, formerly the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) is an office within the White House Office that is part of the Executive Office of the Presiden ...
. ARI intellectuals argue that religion is incompatible with American ideals and opposes the teaching of "
intelligent design
Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...
" in public schools.
ARI is strongly supportive of
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...
and opposes all forms of censorship, including laws that ban
obscenity and
hate speech. In response to the
Muhammad cartoons controversy, ARI started a Free Speech Campaign in 2006. Steve Simpson, formerly director of legal studies at ARI, has argued that
campaign finance
Campaign finance, also known as election finance or political donations, refers to the funds raised to promote candidates, political parties, or policy initiatives and referendums. Political parties, charitable organizations, and political a ...
is a free speech issue and that laws that limit it are a violation of the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
. Accordingly, Simpson and ARI strongly supports ''
Citizens United
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
''.
ARI holds that the motivation for Islamic terrorism comes from their religiosity, not poverty or a reaction to Western policies. They have urged that the United States use overwhelming, retaliatory force to "end states who sponsor terrorism", using whatever means are necessary to end the threat.
In his article "End States Who Sponsor Terrorism", which was published as a full page ad in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', Peikoff wrote: "The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations. Our Commander-In-Chief must decide whether it is his duty to save Americans or the governments who conspire to kill them". Although some at ARI initially supported the invasion of Iraq, it has criticized how the Iraq War was handled. Since October 2, 2001, ARI has held that
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
should be the primary target in the war against "Islamic totalitarianism".
ARI is generally supportive of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. Of
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
,
Yaron Brook
Yaron Brook ( he, ירון ברוק; born May 23, 1961) is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, writer, and activist. He is an Objectivist and the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute, where he was executive director from 2000 to ...
writes: "Zionism fused a valid concern – self-preservation amid a storm of hostility – with a toxic premise – ethnically based collectivism and religion".
ARI is highly critical of
environmentalism
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks ...
and
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
, arguing that they are destructive to human well-being. ARI is also highly critical of
diversity
Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to:
Business
*Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce
*Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers
* ...
and
affirmative action programs as well as
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
, arguing that they are based on
racist premises that ignore the commonality of a shared humanity.
ARI supports women's
right to choose abortion, voluntary
euthanasia and
assisted suicide.
ARI denounces
neoconservatism
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and ...
in general. For example,
C. Bradley Thompson
C. Bradley Thompson is the BB&T Research Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He received his Ph.D. at Brown University where he studied under Gordon S. ...
wrote an article entitled "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism", which was later turned with Yaron Brook into a book called ''Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea''.
Assets
As of FYE September 2018, ARI had assets of $8,061,000.
Funding details
Funding details as of FYE September 2018.
The Ayn Rand Institute was approved for "$350,000 to $1 million" under the
Paycheck Protection Program
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a $953-billion business loan program established by the United States federal government during the Donald Trump administration in 2020 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARE ...
in 2020.
This data was released by the
Trump Administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...
in response to largely Democratic demands for more transparency surrounding the
CARES Act
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2trillion Stimulus (economics), economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27, ...
.
The decision was criticized due to the incongruity of some organizations previously opposed to federal spending receiving the funds during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
and resulting economic impact on small businesses.
[
]
The Atlas Award
The Ayn Rand Institute Atlas Award is encouraging entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
. It is awarded to honour the most entrepreneurial entrepreneur who through wealth building and life enhancing enterprise ambition use their technological developments to make the "world a better place" which reflects the essence of Ayn Rand's philosophy connecting these values "to one of the best parts of the Israeli economy".
Recipients include:
* 2016 Moovit
Moovit ( he, מוביט) is an Israel-based mobility as a service provider and journey planner app. It has been owned by Intel through the Mobileye subsidiary since 2020. The company uses both crowdsourced and official public transit data to pro ...
[
]
See also
* Charles Koch Institute
The Charles Koch Institute is a libertarian-oriented public policy research, programming, grant-making, and fellowship-funding organization based in Virginia. Named after Charles Koch, its founder and primary financier, it pursues conservative ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Ayn Rand
Atheist organizations
Abortion-rights organizations in the United States
Church–state separation advocacy organizations
Non-profit organizations based in California
Objectivist organizations
Organizations based in Irvine, California
Think tanks established in 1985
Political and economic think tanks in the United States
Separation of church and state in the United States
1985 establishments in California