At a Glance
Image: students who participate in dialogue sessions of the book The Fountainhead. Behind, the sculpture Atlas Libertas that was inspired by the title and subject of Ayn Rand’s literary masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. It is located on the main façade that welcomes visitors in the building of UFM's Business School.
Mission statement
Our mission is to promote discussion and reflection in order to encourage the adoption of a philosophy of life that leads a person to champion reason, individual rights, capitalism and entrepreneurial activity.
Characteristics
Founded in 2009 by Guillermo Pineda with the support of Universidad Francisco Marroquín as a private, secular, coeducational, nonresidential, nonprofit center of study.
Adelaida Loukota Joined the project in October 2011, as Executive Director.
How do we fulfill our mission?
- We organize socratic dialogue sessions with high school students and young entrepreneurs to study values as guides to excellence in thinking and action.
- From November, 2009 to August, 2011 we leaded more than 150 socratic dialogues of 1.5 hours each to discuss the philosophical principles of The Fountainhead with a more than 700 high school students.
- Since January, 2010 we have organized socratic dialogues that include the discussion of the books: "Not a zero sum game" by Manuel Ayau, "Common Sense Economics" by James D. Gwartney, and "Economics In One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.
- We currently write a blog titled "Capitalismo". Since its creation the blog has become one of the first sources of information of Capitalism in Spanish language. More than 10 thousand visitors have reached our blog from different parts of the world.
- During the second semester of 2010 we will teach online courses for international and local students in the areas of philosophy, politics, non-fiction writing, and economy.
Facts of our work:
| Dialogues with high school students | 278 |
| High schools that have been part of our dialogues | 30 |
| Total dialogue hours | 438 |
| Readers of the book The Fountainhead | 524 |
| Readers of the book Atlas Shrugged | 126 |
| Unique visitors of the Blog Capitalismo (Since Nov, 2009) | 120487 |
| Published Posts at Blog Capitalismo | 307 |
| Followers of the Center's page in Facebook | 997 |
| Followers of the Twitter user @capitalismoufm | 922 |
| Mentions of @capitalismoufm in Twitter Lists | 47 |
Last update: September 2012
Donations:
The Center for the Study of Capitalism relies solely on the generosity of individuals, foundations, and corporations. Our Center does not accept any government funding. The Center is part of Universidad Francisco Marroquin. And as a non-for-profit organization our supporters will find their donations to be tax-deductible.
