Ayn Rand Among the Austrians: Introduction

is centered on Rand’s relationship to the Austrian school of economics. A rather heterodox approach to economics, the Austrian school was founded by Carl Menger in the nineteenth century and was exemplified in the twentieth century by such theorists as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and Murray N. Rothbard. Even though Rand had personal relationships of varying lengths with both Mises and Rothbard, there has been relatively little formal engagement between the Randian and Austrian approaches. This symposium hopes to fill a major gap in the contemporary scholarly literature by exploring both the similarities and the differences between Objectivism and Austrianism.