Introduction to Finance | 2025

Free, unregulated financial markets serve the vital function of providing capital to the producers. Yet, through the ages, banking and other financial activities have been viewed as corrupt and exploitative. From the money-changers of the Middle Ages to the investment bankers of today, financiers have been crippled by the hostility of looters.

This course offers a moral defense of finance and financiers. It methodically examines the vital role they serve in the economy. And it explores the philosophical ideas that make the attacks on financial markets possible and why the profit motive is the only moral and practical motive for financial transactions.

Prerequisites or Corequisites: 200-level courses require that students are enrolled in or have completed the “16-Week Objectivism Seminar” (which has the Fiction course as a prerequisite) or have completed the “Intensive Seminar on Objectivism”.

Course Start Date: January 13, 2024

Level: 200        Start Date: January 13, 2025        Live Class: Mondays, 12-2 pm PT        Quarter: Q2


Instructor        Yaron Brook

TA        Robertas Bakula (rbakula@aynrand.org)

Syllabus        Syllabus

Schedule        Schedule

Assignment Groups and Schedule          Assignment Groups and Schedule

 


Course Reading to be Acquired by Students
Students must have access to Yaron Brook’s and Don Watkins’ book In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. If you have difficulty acquiring this text due to its price or availability in your area, please write to university@aynrand.org.

Reading for the First Class
For the first week, students must read the paper “Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence” by Ross Levine, as well as chapter 1, “The Moral Case for Finance”, from the book In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance.

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Course Includes

  • 5 Lessons
  • 4 Topics
  • 10 Writing Assignments
  • Course Faculty

    Yaron Brook
    Yaron Brook
    Dr. Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is co-author, with Don Watkins, of In Pursuit of Wealth (2017), of Equal Is Unfair (2016), and of the national bestseller Free Market Revolution (2012). He is the host of The Yaron Brook Show on YouTube.

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