Know Your Enemy3 Helmi 2025

Ayn Rand Against the World (w/ Jennifer Burns)

An atheist, a radical for capitalism, a caricature of a greedy libertarian, a best-selling novelist, a difficult partner and passionate lover, and the self-proclaimed greatest philosopher since Aristotle: Ayn Rand was many things, and we talk about almost all of them in this epic episode. To do so, we called upon historian Jennifer Burns, whose intellectual biography, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right , is enormously helpful in trying to understand an idiosyncratic writer who, both then and now, fits ambiguously into the "fusionist" post-war conservative movement. Rand remains a controversial figure whose ideas permeate our culture and continue to inspire some of the most consequential (and least appealing) political figures in the United States. To understand Rand and her influence, we examine her family's experiences during and after the Russian Revolution, her journey to the U.S. and early success in Hollywood, the arduous path she trod to become a writer, Rand's involvement in anti-New Deal politics in the 1930s and 40s, her ideas, philosophy, and scandalous personal life, and much more.

Sources:

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (1943)

— Atlas Shrugged (1957)

— We the Living (1936)

Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)

— Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative (2023)

Whittaker Chambers, "Big Sister Is Watching You," National Review, Dec 28, 1957

Murray Rothbard, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult," (1972)

Mary Gaitskill, Two Girls, Fat and Thin (1991)

Lisa Duggan, Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed, (2019)

— "Ayn Rand and the Cruel Heart of Neoliberalism," Dissent, May 20, 2019.

Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, (2011)

Listen again:

"Milton Friedman and the Making of Our Times," Dec 3, 2023

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to all of our premium episodes!

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The Pump and Dump Presidency (w/ Jacob Silverman)

Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history, and it isn't close. Between his family's crypto business — designed to enable foreign oligarchs, criminals, and state actors to bribe th...

8 Syys 1h 18min

MAGA’s Fight for Animal Rights (w/ Astra Taylor & Aaron Regunberg) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. We talk to Astra Taylor and Aaron Regunberg about their recent New Republic article about MAGA's embrace of anim...

31 Elo 3min

The Long Struggle Against Equality in America (w/ Kim Phillips-Fein)

In this episode, we're pleased to welcome back historian Kim Phillips-Fein, one of the truly outstanding observers of the right, past and present, working today, for a conversation about her new book,...

24 Elo 1h 44min

Conservatives in Disarray? [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. What is going on with the right? Why are they so mad at each other? What accounts for their apparent malaise? Wh...

17 Elo 6min

Archaeology and Annexation in Palestine (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

This episode begins by noting the proximity of two of the most significant events of the twentieth century, one archaeological, the other political: the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 and t...

10 Elo 1h 40min

UNLOCKED: Tucker Carlson and the Anti-Israel Right (w/ Peter Beinart)

This episode originally aired June 15, 2026 on Patreon — we're unlocking it for the rest of you. Author and Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart returns to "Know Your Enemy" to discuss Tucke...

3 Elo 58min

The Platner Ordeal (w/ Dorothy Fortenberry) [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Matt and Sam are joined by their great friend Dorothy Fortenberry to discuss the debacle of Graham Platner: the ...

28 Heinä 4min

Gerontocracy in America (w/ Sam Moyn)

Lindsey Graham's death last week at 71 was as remarkable for the senator's relative "youth" as its possible political and electoral consequences, so much so that it actually prompted conspiracy theori...

20 Heinä 1h 8min