Interview with Sandra Shaw, Organizer of Debate 1984

Sandra Shaw considered herself a socialist when she enrolled at Toronto’s York University in 1981. But then she attended classes taught by John Ridpath, associate professor of economics and intellectual history, who helped her discover Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. “I was struggling to understand the issues,” she recalled. “I was on a learning curve, a journey. I was cautious about embracing Objectivism. I really needed to see the moral case for Objectivism up against that of socialism, for which I still had sympathy. Organizing the debate was part of that intellectual journey.” In this episode of New Ideal live, Shaw joins ARI’s Elan Journo to discuss the efforts that went into organizing and staging the classic 1984 debate, “Capitalism or Socialism: Which Is the Moral System?”