Yaron Brook

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Israeli-American Objectivist

Yaron Brook

Native name	ירון ברוק
Born	(1961-05-23) May 23, 1961 (age 62) Jerusalem, Israel
Occupation	Chairman of the Board, Ayn Rand Institute
Citizenship	American, Israeli
Education	Technion (BS) UT Austin (MBA, PhD)
Literary movement	Objectivism
Notable works	In Pursuit of Wealth Equal Is Unfair Free Market Revolution Why Businessmen Need Philosophy NEOCONSERVATISM Winning the Unwinnable War
Website
yaronbrookshow.com

Objectivist movement
Ayn Rand
Philosophy Objectivism Rational egoism Individualism Capitalism Romantic realism
Organizations Ayn Rand Institute The Atlas Society Nathaniel Branden Institute Objectivist Party Libertarianz
Theorists Ayn Rand Ayn Rand Institute Leonard Peikoff Allan Gotthelf Harry Binswanger Tara Smith Andrew Bernstein Yaron Brook John Ridpath Other David Kelley George Reisman Tibor Machan Stephen Hicks Nathaniel Branden Alan Greenspan
Literature Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal For the New Intellectual Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology The New Left Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand Philosophy: Who Needs It The Romantic Manifesto The Virtue of Selfishness Objectivist periodicals The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies The Fountainhead Atlas Shrugged
Related topics Objectivism and homosexuality Objectivism and libertarianism Objectivism's rejection of the primitive Randian hero
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Yaron Brook (Hebrew: ירון ברוק; born May 23, 1961^[1]) is an Israeli-American Objectivist writer who is the current chairman of the board at the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), where he was executive director from 2000 to 2017. Prior to joining ARI, he was a finance professor at Santa Clara University, where he taught for seven years.^[2]

In 2018, a public event featuring Brook and Carl Benjamin, a controversial YouTuber known as "Sargon of Akkad", as speakers was protested by masked activists.^[3] Brook has claimed that "Islamic ideology" is not compatible with the moral values of the contemporary Western world.^[4]

Biography

Yaron Brook was born in Jerusalem and raised in Haifa.^[5] His parents were Jewish socialists from South Africa. When he was sixteen, a friend lent him a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, leading him to embrace Objectivism.^[6] After graduating from high school, he served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence (1979–1982) and then earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1986 from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.^[7]

Career

Brook became an associate of leading Objectivist intellectuals, such as philosopher Leonard Peikoff, and in 1994, he co-founded Lyceum International, a company that organized Objectivist conferences and offered distance-learning courses. In 2000, he left Santa Clara University to succeed Michael Berliner as President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which was then located in Marina del Rey, California. In 2002, ARI relocated to Irvine, California.^[8]

Views and opinions

Politics and economics

Brook is an outspoken proponent of laissez-faire capitalism. In appearances on CNBC^[9] and several articles^[10] and speeches, he has defended the rights of corporations and businessmen and upheld the virtues of capitalism. In a January 7, 2007, editorial in USA Today, he defended multimillion-dollar CEO pay packages against the attempt by the government to regulate them.^[11] In a 2010 interview, Brook called the efforts of Democrats to raise taxes on multi-millionaires "totally immoral." He criticized George W. Bush for signing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which regulates corporate accounting practices.^[12] He has also argued that antitrust laws are "unjust and make no sense ethically or economically."^[13]

Brook is co-author, with Don Watkins, of the book Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.^[14] “What we care about is whether individuals are able to rise by merit—and the fact is that many of the policies the inequality critics say will improve mobility actually make rising by merit much harder,” they argue in the book.^[15]

Israel

On Zionism, Brook argued that "Zionism fused a valid concern—self-preservation amid a storm of hostility—with a toxic premise: ethnically based collectivism and religion."^[16]

Published works

Books

Brook, Yaron. "Published Books". The Yaron Brook Show.
Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (September 21, 2017). In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance (Paperback ed.). Ayn Rand Institute. p. 264. ISBN 978-0996010115.
Watkins, Don; Brook, Yaron (March 29, 2016). Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality (Hardcover ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-1250084446.
Brook, Yaron; Watkins, Don (September 18, 2012). Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government (Hardcover ed.). St. Martin's Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-0230341692.
Ghate, Debi (April 5, 2011). Why Businessmen Need Philosophy: The Capitalist's Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (Paperback ed.). Berkley. p. 336. ISBN 9780451232694.
Thompson, C. Bradley; Brook, Yaron (May 30, 2010). NEOCONSERVATISM: An Obituary for an Idea (Hardcover ed.). Routledge. p. 256. ISBN 978-1594518317.
Journo, Elan (September 29, 2009). Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism (Hardcover ed.). Lexington Books. p. 268. ISBN 978-0739135402.

Other

Corporate governance: a study of director liability, firm performance and shareholder wealth, University of Texas, Austin, 1994 [thesis]
Shareholder wealth effects of directors' liability limitation provisions, Brook, Yaron; Rao, Ramesh K. S., Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, vol. 3, 1994, 481–497
Terrorism in Israel, Yaron Brook, The Intellectual Activist, Vol. 10, No. 4, July 1996
The gains from takeover deregulation: Evidence from the end of interstate banking restrictions Archived September 28, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert; Darrell Lee, Journal of Finance the journal of the American Finance Association, {Malden, Mass. et al.: Blackwell}, vol. 6, 1998, 2185–2204
Do Firms Use Dividends to Signal Large Future Cash Flow Increases?, Brook, Yaron; Charlton, William T., Jr.; Hendershott, Robert J., Financial Management, (Tampa, Fla. : Financial Management Association International) vol. 3, 1998, 46–57
Corporate Governance and Recent Consolidation in the Banking Industry Archived June 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J.; Lee, Darrell, Journal of Corporate Finance: contracting, governance and organization, (Santa Clara U; Kennesaw State U), vol. 2, 2000, pp. 141–164
Hype and Internet Stocks, Brook, Yaron; Hendershott, Robert J., The Journal of Investing, vol. 2, 53–64
"Just War Theory" vs. American Self-Defense, Yaron Brook, Alex Epstein, The Objective Standard, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2006
"The 'Forward Strategy' For Failure, Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, The Objective Standard, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 2007
Brook's article on CEO compensation in USA Today
Brook, Yaron. "Yaron Brook Insights". The Yaron Brook Show.

References

^ "Yaron Brook". Facebook.com. Archived from the original on January 11, 2016. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
^ Stewart, James B. (July 13, 2017). "As a Guru, Ayn Rand May Have Limits. Ask Travis Kalanick". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
^ "Masked protesters halt campus event featuring Israeli speaker". The Jewish Chronicle. 2018. Retrieved October 18, 2023.
^ Cruse, Beth (April 1, 2022). "Police called as protesters 'blockade door' to lecture". Bristol Live. Retrieved October 18, 2023.
^ Arfa, Orit (July 12, 2007). "'You don't fight a tactic'". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
^ "Atlas came to Irvine". The Orange County Register. Archived from the original on June 15, 2008. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
^ "Yaron Brook". Ayn Rand Institute. Archived from the original on November 12, 2013. Retrieved August 18, 2009.
^ Letran, Vivian (June 7, 2002). "Ayn Rand Institute to Move to Orange County". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved August 18, 2009.
^ "yaron brook – CNBC". Search.cnbc.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
^ Epstein, Alex; Brook, Yaron (October 22, 2002). "Paralyzing America's Producers". Ayn Rand Institute. Archived from the original on May 25, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2009.
^ Brook, Yaron (January 7, 2007). "Pay is company's prerogative". USA Today. p. 19A. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2017.
^ Brook, Yaron; Epstein, Alex (July 14, 2003). "The cost of the 'ethical' assault on honest businessmen". Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2009.
^ "Capitalism and Business Ethics: Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute". Washingtonpost.com. July 19, 2000. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Retrieved October 2, 2009.
^ "Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality". The Ayn Rand Institute. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
^ "New Book Argues 'Equal is Unfair'". WTTW News. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
^ Arfa, Orit (July 12, 2007). "'You don't fight a tactic'". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2016.