The Editors
Measure Q and the Lending Crisis in Education
The city of Los Angeles passed a $7 billion bond measure to refurbish public schools on Election Day. “Measure Q,” the fifth education-related bond measure since 1997, will go towards renovating buildings and creating new preschools and adult education centers.
Figures on LA’s total per pupil revenue from local, state, and federal government’s are difficult to [...]
The Environmentalist Attack on Outdoorsmanship
This past summer, The Economist published an article (”Out of the Wilderness”) pointing to a decade long trend of declining outdoorsmanship in America. According to the article, national park attendance peaked in the mid-80s and has been in a steady decline since. Despite tremendous population growth in America, fewer people are visiting local parks, taking [...]
The Value of Atlas Shrugged
Originally published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most controversial novels in American fiction, celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Annual sales have been growing for years, and may grow even faster if Hollywood talk of a film-adaptation proves accurate.
Atlas Shrugged is routinely included on ‘favorite books’ surveys. It is not uncommon to hear [...]
Consumer Protection in a Free Market
An article in the latest issue of the Undercurrent examines the cultural vilification of Big Pharma. The piece argues that pharmaceutical companies deserve their profits because they invest a tremendous amount of time and energy researching and developing their products. In this post, we look at the oft-made criticism that the only reason pharmaceutical companies [...]
The profit motive on trial: A look at the famous Raymond Dirks insider trading case
An article in the latest edition of the Undercurrent analyzes the moral arguments underlying insider trading laws. In this post, we recount a specific insider trading case from the early 1980s that revealed that it is indeed the profit motive that insider trading laws exist to penalize.
Here’s the story:
Ron Secrist, an employee at an insurance [...]
Spring Issue PDF online–it’s not too late to order!
Here’s a PDF of the Spring Issue.
There are a limited number of extra copies remaining, so if this is something you’d like to distribute (at local campuses, subway stations, coffee shops, and other suitable locations), please place your order while you still can! (Orders can be placed here.)
As always, we welcome and kindly appreciate [...]
Two Articles on Ayn Rand in Student Papers
Two articles published in the last two days, in major university papers, discuss Ayn Rand’s ideas.
The first, printed in the Columbia Spectator, is written by a student who read Atlas Shrugged this past summer and found it “the most arduous, yet rewarding” experience of his academic life. He urges his professors to include Ayn Rand’s works [...]
OAC Early Admissions Deadline
The Early Admissions deadline for the Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) is April 16, 2008 - just a few weeks away! The OAC is a distance-learning program of the Ayn Rand Institute offering classes on Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, as well as on the methods of objective thinking and communication. If you are interested in Ayn [...]
Wafa Sultan’s Moral Certainty
Rule of Reason links to a new video in which Wafa Sultan debates Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih on an Al-Jazeera TV show. The Muslim speaker and the host claim that whenever America is threatened with force, it backs down.
On the face of it, they seem unaware of the fact that the West has the military [...]
Democratically Designed
Defenders of evolution are hailing recent pro-evolution revisions in the Florida State Science standards. Even though the revisions include compromises that undercut the victory, the changes are a definite step forward—the previous standards did not even use the word “evolution”.
The discouraging aspect of the Florida Board of Education’s decision is the extent to which it [...]
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Objectivism
The Undercurrent's cultural commentary is based on Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Objectivism, which animates Ayn Rand's fiction, is a systematic philosophy of life. It holds that the universe is orderly and comprehensible, that man survives by reason, that his life and happiness comprise his highest moral purpose, and that he flourishes only in a society that protects his individual rights.Event Calendar
