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The Atlas Society — of which The Objectivist Center (TOC) is a part — is a research and advocacy organization promoting "a culture that affirms the core Objectivist values of reason, individualism, freedom, and achievement." It is part of the Objectivist movement that split off from the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in 1990 due to disagreements over whether the philosophy of Ayn Rand's Objectivism was a "closed system" or an "open system." [1] The organization's name is a reference to Rand's work, Atlas Shrugged.
Founder David Kelley espouses Objectivism as an open system, hence the organization has advocated what he terms "a policy of tolerant, open debate and free discussion" at its forums. It has also been willing to cooperate with certain libertarians on joint projects, and to carry works by individuals such as Nathaniel Branden, with whom Ayn Rand broke in the late 1960s.[2]
The Atlas Society, claims to be "the most respected independent source of information about Objectivism"; its mission is to offer a "perspective that transcends conventional 'left-right' cultural and political thinking."[3]
TAS began as the Institute of Objectivist Studies (IOS) in 1990, and was renamed The Objectivist Center in 1999. That same year, the Center founded "The Atlas Society" as a "special part of our Web site [that was] meant to appeal to those who read Ayn Rand novels." On June 5, 2006, the organization announced that they "have decided to use The Atlas Society as our official name, which will help us promote our ideas to Rand readers as well as to the general public, while reserving The Objectivist Center name for our more academic and scholarly activities." [4]
The Society continues to host conferences, including an annual summer seminar; conducts scholarly research and student training; issues pamphlets, recordings, op-eds, and monographs; provides speakers to the media and to campus groups; and publishes a magazine of politics and culture, The New Individualist (previously titled Navigator, published 1997-2004).