by Ayn Rand and others
Read by Susan O'Malley
Edited by Richard Ralston

Unabridged, professional reading.

An audiobook excerpt from the title essay
An audiobook excerpt from “An Answer for Businessmen”
When it comes to their professional lives, America's businessmen are generally the most rational, reality-focused, egoistic group in our culture. Yet they overwhelmingly reject philosophy as meaningless abstractions, irrelevant to life.

This book—with articles by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, Harry Binswanger and others—could dramatically change their minds. It systematically shows how philosophy shapes the practical world of business. Today, when businessmen are being slowly devoured by the abstract ideas they refuse to understand, this book is desperately needed.

In the title essay, Leonard Peikoff shows how the egoism of America's founders liberated business, and how today's ethics of altruism is destroying it. He goes on to demonstrate how a pro-reason and pro-reality philosophy implicitly underlies business, and how today's culture is undermining that philosophy.

Two (previously unanthologized) articles by Ayn Rand further defend the businessman. One, The Money-Making Personality, is an analysis of the philosophical and psychological roots of wealth-creation. The other, An Answer for Businessmen, is a brief, intriguing piece that presages the theme of her later article The Sanction of the Victims.

Harry Binswanger's brilliant essay, The Dollar and the Gun, thoroughly explodes one of the most destructive anti-capitalist package-deals: equating the power of coercion—the power of a negative, which ultimately flows from the barrel of a gun—with the power of economic wealth—the power of a positive value, which ultimately flows from productive ability. This article provides a case study in applied epistemology, showing the mind-destroying effects of sloppy thinking.

This book is written for the philosophical defenders of capitalism. Its message is: Those of you who find yourselves disarmed in the face of philosophically sophisticated opposition—the ammunition you need is not more economic arguments but a pro-capitalist philosophy.

(Audio CD; 5-CD set; 6 hrs.)

Also available in Softcover and Cassette Audiobook.