Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand and the Goddess of the Market

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2017

⏱️ 65 minutes

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Summary

Jennifer Burns of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her biography of Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market. They discuss Rand's philosophy, her influence, her relationship with the conservative movement, and the intersection of her personal life with her philosophical principles.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast,
0:16.0	and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.0	back to 2006.
0:26.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org. We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.0	Today is October 2nd, 2017, and my guest is historian and author Jennifer Burns of Stanford University.
0:40.0	She's currently working on a biography of Milton Friedman.
0:42.0	Her first book, which is the subject of today's conversation, is Goddess of the Market,
0:47.0	Eind Rand, and the American Right. It's published in 2009 by Oxford University Press.
0:53.0	Jennifer, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:55.0	Thanks for having me.
0:57.0	So, on the surface, a biography of Eind Rand seems like an unusual topic for a historian.
1:03.0	What drew you to her and why is she important in history?
1:09.0	You know, it's a great question, and I started graduate school in the year 2000,
1:16.0	and I was interested in intellectual history. I was interested in religious history.
1:20.0	I was sort of exploring, and it just so happened that I kept coming across Eind Rand.
1:25.0	It was like this weird thing where, you know, I might get on the bus and see someone's buried in Atlas Shrugged,
1:32.0	or I might go to a friend's house who never ever reads, and there she's got Atlas Shrugged by her bedside.
1:38.0	I started thinking, what's up with Eind Rand? She's a historical figure.
1:41.0	She existed in history, like I should learn about her.
	...

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