Objectivist Round-up, April 2026

1. The Ayn Rand Institute all but calls for a nuclear attack on Iran:

Eliminating the threat from Iran’s Islamic totalitarian regime necessitates discrediting its ideology, making it a lost cause. Some may doubt this is possible, in the shadow of the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, and indeed, it has been decades since America has followed the right approach. History, however, provides a compelling model.

Consider the lesson from the 1945 defeat of martyrdom-extolling imperial Japan, which offered an “unconditional surrender” only after two atom bombs. The historian John David Lewis has eloquently described American efforts to discredit and uproot the regime’s ideology from schools and government, and to block from political office former regime leaders.

2. Yaron Brook appears to think that the Trump administration is listening to him on the Iranian war and even taking his advice.  (Hat tip to Scott Schiff.)

3. Nikos Sotirakopoulos left the ARI after five years and is going out on his own.  He’s asking you to join his Patreon page.  If you are in a generous mood, you can be a founding member for a mere $3,082 a month.  

—Neil Parille

Objectivist Round-up, mid-March 2026

1. Alan Greenspan turned 100.  While Greenspan is best known for being the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, he was a member of Ayn Rand’s Collective.  In fact, he was one of the four signers to Rand’s To Whom It May Concern, which excommunicated Nathaniel and Barbara Branden in 1968.  In his autobiography, Greenspan said that while he started to doubt certain aspects of Objectivism (such as that government could exist without coercive taxation), he remained friends with Rand until she died.  Harry Binswanger said he could tell by the mid 1970’s that Greenspan wasn’t a consistent Objectivist.  (I recall that he was harsher, but I can’t find the quote.)  I’ve wondered why Rand couldn’t see that Greenspan was at least borderline betraying Objectivism.*  Rand’s biographers have said she admired Greenspan because, unlike most of her followers, he was older and had an independent career.