Many businessmen hold the view that philosophy deals with meaningless abstractions that have nothing to do with practical life. But at a time when the world is facing a serious economic crisis and big business is taking the bulk of the blame, businessmen need to understand the philosophical answers to the ideological attacks against them. This collection of essays by Ayn Rand and other Objectivist intellectuals sheds light on the reasons why philosophy is not an ivory tower of escape but a practical necessity at all levels of business, influencing everything from day-to-day decisions to the broadest issues of politics and economics. These works address the philosophical ideas underlying the attacks against businessmen, and offers intellectual ammunition to those businessmen ready to defend themselves.
Debi Ghate is Vice President of Academic Programs at the Ayn Rand Institute where she also serves as a corporate officer. Ghate is the senior director of the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, a separate organization from ARI that supports scholarly work based on Ayn Rand's corpus.
Richard A. Ralston is the publishing manager of the Ayn Rand Institute. He has been the circulation director and publisher of The Christian Science Monitor, a radio producer, a national television news business manager, and a book publisher. He was the revision editor of two books by Ayn Rand in 2005: THREE PLAYS and THE EARLY AYN RAND.