The Culture of Reason Center is offering lectures 1-20 of Nathaniel Branden’s The Basic Principles of Objectivism Course for sale as individual MP3 downloads. These are the original lectures that Branden gave during the operation of the Nathaniel Branden Institute in the 60’s. Enjoy!

Lecture 01: The Role of Philosophy
Lecture 02: What is Reason?
Lecture 03: Logic and Mysticism
Lecture 04: The Concept of God
Lecture 05: Free Will
Lecture 06: Efficient Thinking
Lecture 07: Self-Esteem
Lecture 08: The Psychology of Dependence
Lecture 09: The Psychology of Sex
Lecture 10: The Objectivist Ethics
Lecture 11: Reason and Virtue
Lecture 12: Justice vs. Mercy
Lecture 13: The Evil of Self-Sacrifice
Lecture 14: Government and The Individual
Lecture 15: The Economics of A Free Society
Lecture 16: Common Fallacies About Capitalism
Lecture 17: Romanticism, Naturalism and The Novels of Ayn Rand, Part 1
Lecture 18: Romanticism, Naturalism and The Novels of Ayn Rand, Part 2
Lecture 19: The Nature of Evil
Lecture 20: The Benevolent Sense of Life

I recently had the opportunity to interview the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship’s Fall 2009 guest speaker Joshua Hall about his views on school finance reform. Professor Hall explains why, despite an increase in spending on public education, we are not getting more out of it. Via CEE.

Today, I celebrate my birthday. Well, not really. I should call it my re-birthday. You see, I grew up in East Berlin, and today twenty years have passed since the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

I was 8 years old, living in Moscow on that day. Little did I know that it would not only change the course of history, but my life as well.

Back then I did not understand the significance of what had happened. However, when I returned to Berlin during the summer of 1990, I could already feel that some profound change had taken place, and that more was to come. Still, I had yet to grasp how philosophy shapes man and his creations. I had yet to gain the knowledge necessary to perceive how the human spirit is uplifted by freedom and crushed by coercion.

But today, I understand that the fall of the Berlin Wall opened much more for me than a physical border.

Had it not been for that day, I would probably not be living in the United States now. Those who wanted to cross the East German border, attempting to exercise one of their most fundamental individual rights — the freedom to seek greater economic liberty and personal opportunity — were shot by the border guards.

Had it not been for that day, I would probably not have obtained a degree in philosophy, or have been exposed to the great minds of classical liberal and libertarian thoughts — John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman. Higher education was rationed, controlled and censored; individualists were spied on, harassed, blackmailed and imprisoned in East Germany.

Most importantly, had it not been for that day, I would not have met my husband, a man as passionate about choosing his life as I am about choosing mine.

Yet, I do not regard this day as a reminder not to take for granted the freedom I now enjoy. It is simply the day that I and millions of other people regained the ability to exercise the rights we naturally possess.

What matters are not the walls that we erect, but the ones that we tear down.

In her book Where We Stand: Class Matters, bell hooks claims to show how class intertwines with race and gender to exacerbate the economic and psychological plight of the poor. Yet, it’s riddled with worn-out clichés, myths, unsubstantiated claims, and downright falsehoods.

Before I launch into my criticisms, I want to point out that I know poverty from personal experience. I know what it feels like not to have the clothes, the amenities, the toys, the gadgets, the material symbols deemed important by others. I felt that way throughout most of middle- and high school. I have seen the suffering and inhumanity of true poverty, and it has always touched me deeply and personally. By no means do I take for granted what I have. A lot of hard work went into my being were I am today, work on the part of my parents, me and my husband.

Nevertheless, not only from the total sum of my own experience, but also as scholar of philosophy, politics and economics, I disagree with hooks on several grounds. In the following I will respond to three themes in hooks’ book: the state of poverty; wealth as a zero-sum game; and wasting resources.

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Reason Foundation will have a special series in November celebrating Ayn Rand.

John Mackey speaks with reason.tv about his proposal for healthcare reform, the history of Whole Foods, and dealing with government interference.