How NOT to Explain Mamdani’s Socialist Revival

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The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast

Ayn Rand Institute

300 episodes

18 hours ago

The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast explores pressing cultural issues from the perspective of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism.

Philosophy

Religion & Spirituality,

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The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast explores pressing cultural issues from the perspective of Rand's philosophy, Objectivism.

Philosophy

Religion & Spirituality,

How NOT to Explain Mamdani’s Socialist Revival

The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast

56 minutes 28 seconds

2 months ago

How NOT to Explain Mamdani’s Socialist Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6vA9ensrzw

Podcast audio:

In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Nikos Sotirakopoulos critique a recent Wall Street Journal article that tries to explain Zohran Mamdani’s rise and the persistence of socialism in American politics.

Among the topics covered:

* Why socialism is not an innate impulse or the product of ignorance of history;

* Why idealism alone does not explain socialism’s popularity;

* How miseducation about capitalism contributes to the endurance of socialism;

* Why you can’t fight woke ideology while upholding Christianity’s altruistic ethic;

* How to defeat socialism.

Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, her article “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Socialism, and Bayer’s articles “The Dishonesty of ‘Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried’” and “The Old Morality of the New Religions.”

The podcast was recorded on August 25, 2025 and posted on August 28, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.