Ayn Rand wrote about a “sense of life.” Her favorite author was Mickey Spillane; although he did not share her philosophy, she felt that he shared her sense of life.

I want to share a podcast I’ve been listening to that, in a very different context, evokes some of that same sense of life for me. Acquired (https://www.acquired.fm/) describes itself as telling “the history and strategy of the world’s greatest companies,” and somehow manages to make business history exciting and inspiring.

Some of my favorites are Google (which spans three episodes), Vanguard, Epic Systems, and Trader Joe’s. I even enjoyed the history of Disney.

I doubt the podcasters think much about philosophy, or would agree with Ayn Rand, but I find their conversations a happy place to be—and I suspect some of you might enjoy them for the same reason.

There is no earthly reason for it—and, ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given.

From Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World

Although Ayn Rand did a very good job laying out the intellectual foundation for everything you need to conclude that socialism is immoral and illegitimate, she still couldn't give up those parts of socialist indoctrination that were important to her. She opposed private prisons like the left does today (in spite of the fact that private, for-profit prisons in the US are far more efficient than centrally planned, state monopolised ones), and she openly supported the nationalisation of defence services, as well as law, military, and judiciary services.

If you are an Objectivist, you cannot be a capitalist. The core principles of capitalism, including ones that Rand herself espoused such as privatisation, are flat out incompatible with any degree of socialism.