Atlas Summit 2016 at FreedomFest

The relationships we have with our coworkers, friends, family, and intimate romantic partners form the emotional heart of our lives. They are also the context where Ayn Rand’s philosophy is both most important and most difficult to apply. True Interdependence requires the delicate and precise application of the traits of the Ayn Rand hero to the most intimate of all possible trades – love.

Join relationship coach Mark Michael Lewis as he draws on 25+ years of using Ayn Rand’s work to create fun, ease, and passion in his clients’ relationships—and become an Ayn Rand Hero in your own right.

Women who struggle with boundaries, self-esteem, low-standards, over-giving, and wishful thinking will find fresh, practical solutions from a surprising, even reviled source: libertarian principles and the ideas of Ayn Rand.
Women traditionally shrink from Rand and libertarianism because these are viewed as “selfish” -- but a less altruistic, more self-centric, more rational approach to dating is precisely what women need to date with less drama, less resentment, and less heartache.  Rand's heroines were independent, sexually liberated career women who multi-dated, and multi-married, until they landed their Hero. In this talk, Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman discusses how modern women can do the same, by leveraging the market based precepts and Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Medical inflation continues to outpace general inflation. Why this is happening has much to do with the fact that what is called "health insurance" really isn’t insurance. As Objectivists, we understand the immorality of coerced wealth redistribution, but this argument does not resonate with everyone. Being able to also argue the economic aspects of healthcare can strengthen your ability to make the case for freedom in medical care. Come learn about the nature of insurance, what it is and isn’t, why current health policy is doomed to fail – and what better alternatives exist.

Most people think of “human evolution” as being of two distinct parts: one biological and another cultural. This is a variant on the old “nature vs. nurture” debate, with culture and education dragging nasty primitive old genes up into the light. That distinction, and that theory of history, it turns out, is overwrought. Actually, the two work together, each modifying the other. Modern human genetics is a product of co-evolution, the feedback loop between nature and nurture. That feedback loop includes trade. Trade is environmental. Trade, through natural selection over at least the last 200,000 years, has changed human genetics profoundly. This now obvious insight validates the philosophies of trade,  property, liberty, and markets.

A scientific, objective school of economics would start with the very nature of man as does Rand’s ethics. From an evolutionary and economic point of view the unique feature of man is that while all other organisms adapted to their environment, man adapts his environment to his needs. This shows that inventions are, for man, the evolutionary equivalent of positive genetic changes. It also shows that the key resource in economics is man’s mind. The relationship between Rand’s meta-ethics, evolution, and economics will be examined.

Does “qua man” add a requirement to “man’s life” in the moral standard or not? Is happiness, life or both the purpose of ethics?  Why “not survival at any price, since there’s only one price that pays for man’s survival: reason?”
Have you ever wondered why Rand’s meta-ethical arguments are so uncharacteristically enigmatic?   The cause will be traced to its roots in Rand’s ambitious aim to integrate happiness, egoism, and objectivity on a foundation of an essentially biological theory of human nature. Another fundamental alternative besides biological life and death will be introduced as the necessary foundation for moral teleology.



Participant/Sponsored Sessions are time slots in which Atlas Summit participants and paying sponsors can offer talks and workshops of their own.

Contact William Thomas, the conference director, for more information about holding a PSS.

Argentina has declined from eighth place in the world for quality of life in the late nineteenth century to settle in the reserved seats for undeveloped countries. Magic? Curse? Bad luck? No. Just good or bad ideas.

The philosophy of the American founding fathers inspired a generation of Argentines during the nineteenth century. Alberdi and Sarmiento adopted the principles of the Anglo-American philosophy based in reason, individual rights and the rule of law. The twentieth century gave birth to a new generation of politicians, who, encouraged by ideological leftist movements, adopted a different path: the French-German-continental philosophy. And that choice made all the difference. In this talk, Eduardo Marty will describe the history of the two Argentinas, identify why they differed, and assess the prospects for its new President, Mauricio Macri, to reverse the recent trend.

Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto is a treasure trove of ideas dealing with the nature of art. Both complex and broad, it gives us tantalizing peeks into the artist's world and the source of our attraction to art. For this talk, artist Michael Newberry will dive deeply into some of Rand’s ideas and show their relationship to painting and sculpture.

(This is newly scheduled: Alexander R. Cohen, originally scheduled for this time slot, is unable to attend.)