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INDIVIDUALISTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! 61
The result was Rand’s thirty-two-page “Manifesto of Individualism,”
the fi rst full statement of her political and philosophical beliefs. Pollock
wanted something much shorter, but once she got going Rand couldn’t
stop. She spent an entire weekend pounding out an essay that would
“present the whole groundwork of our ‘Party Line’ and be a basic document,
such as the Communist Manifesto was on the other side.” 56 In contrast
to her novel, the “Manifesto” had practically written itself.
Rand’s version of the Communist Manifesto bore the hallmarks of
her later work. It was an all-encompassing vision that included a statement
of rights, a theory of history and of social classes, and keen attention
to human psychology. It was a fi rst pass through many of the ideas
she would later fl esh out in both her fi ction and her nonfi ction. There
were some critical differences, both in content and in tone. Rand was
more expository and more nuanced in this fi rst statement than she
would be in her published work. Most signifi cantly, she did not include
reason as an important part of individualism, and she used the word
“altruism” only twice. But many other features of her mature thought
were there. 57
The base of Rand’s individualism was a natural rights theory derived
from the Declaration of Independence. Each man had the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and these rights were “the unconditional,
personal, private, individual possession of each man, granted
to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction.” The
role of society, and its only purpose, is to ensure these individual rights
Rand explained. Next Rand set up a dyad of opposing concepts, contrasting
Totalitarianism to Individualism. Totalitarianism was defi ned
by one basic idea, “that the state is superior to the individual.” Its only
opposite and greatest enemy was Individualism, which was the basic
principle of natural rights. Individualism was the only ground on which
men could live together in decency. As such, the doctrine of an absolute
“common good” was “utterly evil” and “must always be limited by the
basic, inalienable rights of the Individual.” 58
From there she moved quickly to divide society into two realms,
the Political Sphere and the Creative Sphere. The creative sphere is the
realm of all productive activity, and it belongs to “single individuals.”
Rand stressed repeatedly that creation was an individual, not a collective
process. Making an analogy to childbirth, she argued, “[A]ll birth
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