This course explores how the corporation emerged as the most productive institution in history—and why it remains one of the most misunderstood and vilified. From early legal forms to today’s global technology firms, American corporations have evolved in response to innovation, markets, government, and ideas about profit, power, and responsibility.
Integrating history, economics, and moral philosophy, the course challenges the view of corporations as state creations or social instruments and instead presents them as voluntary, goal-directed enterprises organized to create value. Through major episodes—from industrialization and antitrust laws to postwar conglomerates, Silicon Valley, and the digital economy—the course shows how economic progress depends on clear objectives, market discipline, and freedom of action, and how political intervention consistently hampers business and human life. The result is a principled framework for understanding what corporations are, what they are for, and why their freedom is essential to our flourishing.
Join live online classes and participate in the discussion.
Can’t join the live class? Watch all classes anywhere, anytime.
Be a graded student and submit assignments for feedback from expert faculty—or audit and simply enjoy the content and discussions for personal enrichment.
All courses include access to top-notch coaches, who help you set goals, stay on track, and apply what you’re learning to career or intellectual pursuits.
Yaron Brook
ARI reserves the right to cancel or reschedule live courses. Students have the option to be refunded, credited, or transferred to another course should this occur.
The decision to be a graded student or auditor must be made at the outset of a course, via the pre-course survey sent after purchase.
ARI Live Courses are for avocational and professional development purposes. They are not licensed and not accredited.
ARI Live Courses participants must abide by our Code of Conduct and Confidentiality policies, and any other course policies communicated to participants.
Students should have some familiarity with Rand’s books and ideas, and at minimum should have read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead before starting the course.
We offer foundational courses in Objectivism and objective communication each year, as well as courses in special topics such as epistemology, literature, business, and intellectual history.
