We’d like to alert you to a new review of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy (the full preview of which is already available online free of charge) forthcoming in the journal Poiesis & Praxis: International Journal of Technology Assessment and Ethics of Science. The review, by Mario Garitta, is positive and does a good job of capturing the book’s main themes and of analyzing a few of the essays in detail. It’s encouraging to see WBNP receive serious treatment in an academic journal, and we invite you to read and share the piece, which is available through open access.

Here’s the abstract:

“The essays in this book are meant to serve as an introduction to those ideas of Ayn Rand, which are of particular relevance to business people. Rand was known as a spirited defender of the laissez-faire free enterprise system. It is less commonly known that Rand was also deeply committed to the centrality of the enterprise of philosophy for both public and private life. The essays in this book try to bridge the gap between these two aspects of Rand’s thought. The results of the review of the book are mostly positive. The review attempts to separate the different themes in the book such as the importance of philosophy in general, the importance of philosophy for business, the philosophical defense of the free enterprise system and then to evaluate the evidence and arguments presented by the essayists for each claim.”

Read the whole thing.

Penguin Group has included Why Businessmen Need Philosophy in the “Motivation, Management and Leadership” section of its 2011-2012 “Business & Management Books for Courses” catalog, which is distributed to college and university faculty in the field. We hope this will lead more business and management professors to include WBNP and/or Atlas Shrugged in their courses. Another promising sign, The Fountainhead is included in the section “Illuminating Business: Classic Fiction“!

We recently came across a review of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy in the New York Journal of Books. The review’s author, Andrew Rosenbaum, is critical of some essays in the collection (and to some extent, of Ayn Rand’s ideas) but on the whole, the review is positive.

“These essays, some of which are written by Rand herself, provide an excellent introduction to the best and most original aspects of Rand’s thought. . . . ,” Rosenbaum writes. “One really thoughtful essay traces the origins of the idea of antitrust legislation, and tries to show how it went wrong. There is also a carefully documented history of how moneylending has suffered from moralists throughout the centuries. . . . It is refreshing, after this long period in which bankers or capitalists have been blamed for the collapse of the financial system, and many of society’s ills, to take a dose of this unashamedly egotistical and self-glorifying rhetoric.”

Read the review here.

Richard Ralston and I are excited to report that sales for the first three months of the revised and expanded edition of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy are already equal to ten years of sales of the first edition of the book! It seems to be further evidence of the growth in readership of Ayn Rand and related products over the last decade, and in particular in the past few years.

To provide more context, in 2009 sales of Atlas Shrugged surged to more than 500,000, more than doubling the previous record that had been set just one year before. While sales of Atlas have since descended from that half-million peak, they remain well above 2008 levels, reaching 350,000 last year.

Another factor in the improved sales of this edition relative to the original is that the new book is backed by New American Library, a major publisher, so it is much more widely available than the original edition (published by the Ayn Rand Institute Press). Of course, that the new edition was able to attract the interest of a major publisher is perhaps itself evidence of the heightened interest in Rand today.

It’s great to see so many readers of Atlas have been inspired to examine the book’s ideas further through WBNP. Some people have shared stories of how they’ve given the book to their CEO or boss, to local politicians or to business professors. Thank you for sharing the book–we hope sales continue to stay strong for it.

A recent interview with Why Businessmen Need Philosophy co-editor Richard E. Ralston on the purpose and publishing history of the book has been made available on YouTube. In the interview Mr. Ralston discusses the reasons for publishing the book, the title essay by Dr. Leonard Peikoff, and the differences between the new edition and the original.

Why Businessmen Need Philosophy contributor Alex Epstein was recently interviewed on the online radio program, The Chris Treece Show, during a special “Author’s Spotlight” segment about the book. The interview is now available on ARCTV, the video blog of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, where Mr. Epstein is a fellow. In the interview Mr. Epstein discusses the book itself and his contribution to it, the essay, “Why Conservatives Can’t Stop the Growth of the State,” which he co-authored with ARC executive director Yaron Book. Click the link to listen to the recording (27 min).

Why Businessmen Need Philosophy contributors Yaron Brook and Keith Lockitch participated in an “Authors Meet Critics” panel discussing the book at the annual meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education in April. Dr. Brook discussed the essay he co-authored with Alex Epstein, “Why Conservatives Can’t Stop the Growth of the State,” which was critiqued by Brian K. Strow (Western Kentucky University). Dr. Lockitch presented his essay “Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy,” critiqued by Calvin Kent (Marshall University. The panel was chaired by Peter Boettke of George Mason University.

A new video with John Allison, author of the Introduction to Why Businessmen Need Philosophy and retired chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation, was released today by the Ayn Rand Institute. Mr. Allison answers questions about why principles matter, why philosophy matters in business, and why he thinks Ayn Rand’s philosophy provides a competitive advantage in business.

The following is excerpted from the April 2011 issue of the Ayn Rand Institute’s monthly newsletter, Impact.

Impact: Hello, Ms. Ghate. Thank you for meeting with Impact to talk about the new edition of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy. To begin, why did you decide to revise and expand this book?

Debi Ghate: Thanks for speaking with me! The idea to update Why Businessmen Need Philosophy arose when my co-editor, Richard Ralston, learned that the first edition had sold out. He was interested in printing it again with a few updates. When I learned of this, it seemed like a tremendous opportunity for us to create a new volume that might be of more interest to the academic and business community. It brought to mind all the positive conversations we’ve had about Atlas Shrugged with businessmen, college students and educators interested in free market ideas. We personally meet or otherwise hear of many fans of the novel who say the book was influential on them–and many of them are (or will someday be) in business-related fields.

Yet very few consider themselves to be seriously interested in philosophical ideas, which of course, the novel is full of. The new edition of Why Businessmen Need Philosophy serves as a bridge between the novel and its underlying ideas with an emphasis on how they apply to the realm of business. Hence the subtitle for our new book–The Capitalist’s Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

When Richard compiled the first edition in 1999, Objectivist scholarship in this area (and in many other areas) was more limited. Since then, there has been an explosion of excellent articles on themes of interest to the audiences I’ve described.  In addition, the new volume provided us with an opportunity to highlight Ayn Rand’s writings on business in a way that had not been done before.

The result is that we now have a much expanded, improved and timely book than was originally planned.

Read the rest.

The Winston-Salem Journal has published an article on John Allison’s contribution to Why Businessmen Need Philosophy. Mr. Allison wrote the book’s introduction, which discusses the proper principles for success in business, and the kinds of ideas that lead to disaster. It is difficult to understate Mr. Allison’s expertise on this matter: during his almost 20-year tenure as CEO of BB&T Corporation he instilled a corporate culture with roots in Ayn Rand’s ethical theory of rational selfishness–and oversaw organizational growth from from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets.

As he writes in his introduction:

The most important characteristic of successful leaders is their fundamental commitment to making logical decisions based on the facts, and that what is, is. In other words, these leaders are committed to reality. A commitment to rational thinking as a conscious value is a significant competitive advantage. Conversely, one of the most common causes of business failure is evasion by the leader. When faced with information he does not want to hear, he closes off his thinking process and refuses to hear the facts. Being detached from reality ultimately results in disaster. Most truly destructive business decisions are irrational at the time they are made.

Mr. Allison goes on to discuss the major philosophical trap that leads business leaders to behave irrationally: the combination of altruism and pragmatism. You’ll have to buy the book to get the full story, but you can learn more by reading the article.