Man cannot survive, as wpimais do, by the guidance of mere percepts. … He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow bis food or how to make weapons for hunting. His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available— but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought No percepts and no “instincts” will tell him how to light a fire, how to weave doth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet bis life depends on such knowledge—and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide it2
A process of thought is an enormously complex process of identification and integration, which only an individual mind can perform. There is no such thing as a collective brain. Men can learn from one another, but learning requires a process of thought on the part of every individual student. Men can cooperate in the discovery of new knowledge, but such cooperation requires the independent exercise of bis rational faculty by every individual scientist Man is the only living species that can transmit and expand his store of knowledge from generation to generation; but such transmission requires a process of thought on the part of the individual recipients. As witness, the breakdowns of civilization, the dark ages in the history of mankind’s progress, when the accumulated knowledge of centuries vanished from the lives of men who were unable, unwilling, or forbidden to think.
•Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” in The Virtue of Selfishness.
In order to sustain its life, every living species has follow a certain course of action required by its nature. T action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectu everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind a produced by his effort. Production is the application of r< son to the problem of survival. If some men do not choose to think, they can survive 01 by imitating and repeating a routine of work discovered others—but those others had to discover it, or none woi have survived. If some men do not choose to think or work, they can survive (temporarily) only by looting t goods produced by others—but those others had to produ them, or none would have survived. Regardless of wl choice is made, in this issue, by any man or by any numb of men, regardless of what blind, irrational, or evil cour they may choose to pursue—the fact remains that reason man's means of survival and that men prosper or fail, survi or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality. Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are prope ties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his ration faculty or not depends on the individual, man's surviv requires that those who think be free of the interference i those who don't. Since men are neither omniscient nor infal] ble, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate < to pursue their own independent course, each according i his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental r< quirement of man's mind. A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it dot not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, dire tives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its vie of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans, < "welfare." Such a mind may be hampered by others, it ma be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cann< be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example an symbol of this attitude is Galileo.) It is from the work and the inviolate integrity of sue minds—from the intransigent innovators—that all of mai kind's knowledge and achievements have come. (See Th Fountainhead.) It is to such minds that mankind owes it survival. (See Atlas Shrugged.) The same principle applies to all men, on every level c ability and ambition. To the extent that a man is guided b his rational judgment, he acts in accordance with the require ments of his nature and, to that extent succeeds in achievin, a human form of survival and well-being; to the extent tha he acts irrationally, he acts as his own destroyer. The social recognition of man's rational nature—of the connection between his survival and his use of reason—is the concept of individual rights. I shall remind you that "rights" are a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context, that they are derived from man's nature as a rational being and represent a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival. I shall remind you also that the right to life is the source of all rights, including the right to property.8 In regard to political economy, this last requires special emphasis: man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced. Now, bearing these facts in mind, consider the question of what social system is appropriate to man. A social system is a set of moral-political-economic principles embodied in a society's laws, institutions, and government, which determine the relationships, the terms of association, among the men living in a given geographical area. It is obvious that these terms and relationships depend on an identification of man's nature, that they would be different if they pertain to a society of rational beings or to a colony of ants. It is obvious that they will be radically different if men deal with one another as free, independent individuals, on the premise that every man is an end in himself—or as members of a pack, each regarding the others as the means to his ends and to the ends of "the pack as a whole." There are only two fundamental questions (or two aspects of the same question) that determine the nature of any social system: Does a social system recognize individual rights?— and: Does a social system ban physical force from human relationships? The answer to the second question is the practical implementation of the answer to the first. Is man a sovereign individual who owns his person, his mind, his life, his work and its products—or is he the property of the tribe (the state, the society, the collective) that may dispose of him in any way it pleases, that may dictate his convictions, prescribe the course of his lif e, control his work and expropriate his products? Does man have the right to * For a fuller discussion of rights, I refer you to my articles "Man's Rights" in the appendix, and "Collectivized 'Rights'" in The Virtue of Selfishness. exist for his own sake—or is he born in bondage, as i indentured servant who must keep buying his life by servii the tribe but can never acquire it free and clear? This is the first question to answer. The rest is consiquences and practical implementations. The basic issue only: Is man free? In mankind's history, capitalism is the only system th; answers: Yes. Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition < individual rights, including property rights, in which all pro\ erty is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishmei of physical force from human relationships: basically, righ can be violated only by means of force. In a capital! society, no man or group may initiate the use of physic force against others. The only function of the government, i such a society, is the task of protecting man's rights, i.e., tl task of protecting him from physical force; the governmei acts as the agent of man's right of self-defense, and may us force only in retaliation and only against those who initial its use; thus the government is the means of placing tl retaliatory use of force under objective control.* It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature—tr connection between his survival and his use of reason—th; capitalism recognizes and protects. In a capitalist society, all human relationships are vohu tary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with or another or not, as their own individual judgments, convii tions, and interests dictate. They can deal with one anoth< only in terms of and by means of reason, i.e., by means i discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by volui tary choice to mutual benefit The right to agree with othe is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree thi is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protec and implements the right to disagree—and thus keeps tl road open to man's most valuable attribute (valuable persona ly, socially, and objectively): the creative mind.