8.02.2011

The Only Path to Tomorrow - Ayn Rand

The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is 
the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. 
Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but 
the confusion of its enemies. 
To fight it, we must understand it.  
Totalitarianism is collectivism. 




Collectivism means 
the subjugation of the individual to a group 
whether to a race, class or state does not matter. 
Collectivism holds that 
man must be chained to 
collective action and collective thought 
for the sake of what is called 
``the common good.´´

Throughout history, 
no tyrant ever rose to powe
except 
on the claim of representing 
``the common good.´´ 
Napoleon ``served the common good´´ of France. 
Hitler is ``serving the common good´´ of Germany. 
Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake 
are perpetrated with a clear conscience by 
``altruists´´ who justify themselves by-
the common good.

No tyrant has ever lasted long  
by force of arms alone. 
Men have been enslaved primarily  
by spiritual weapons. 
And the greatest of these 
is the collectivist doctrine 
that the supremacy of the state 
over the individual 
constitutes the common good. 


No dictator could rise if men 
held as a sacred faith 
the conviction that 
they have inalienable rights of which 
they cannot be deprived 
for any cause 
whatsoever
by any man 
whatsoever, 
neither by evildoer  
nor 
supposed benefactor.



This is the basic tenet of individualism, 
as opposed to collectivism. 
Individualism holds that 
man is an independent entity 
with an inalienable right 
to the pursuit of his own happiness 
in a society where 
men deal with one another 
as equals.

The American system is founded on individualism.

If it is to survive,  
we must understand 
the principles of individualism 
and hold them  
as our standard 
in any public question
in every issue we face. 
We must have  
a positive credo,  
a clear consistent faith.


We must learn to reject as total evil the conception that the common good is served by the abolition of individual rights. General happiness cannot be created out of general suffering and self-immolation. The only happy society is one of happy individuals. One cannot have a healthy forest made up of rotten trees.
The power of society must always be limited by 
the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.

The right of liberty means man's right to individual action, individual choice, individual initiative and individual property.
Without the right to private property 
no independent action is possible. 
The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men.

These rights are the unconditional, personal, private, individual possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction.

Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims. Society can only be a traffic policeman in the interaction of men with one another.



From the beginning of history,  
two antagonists have stood face to face,  
two opposite types of men:  
the Active and the Passive

The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence — in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other mennor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion. Every type of good work — from laying bricks to writing a symphony — is done by the Active Man. Degrees of human ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence and initiative determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man.

The Passive Man is found on every level of society, in mansions and in slums, and his identification mark is his dread of independence. He is a parasite who expects to be taken care of by others, who wishes to be given directives, to obey, to submit, to be regulated, to be told.
He welcomes collectivism,  
which eliminates any chance 
that he might have to think or act on his own initiative.


When a society is based on the needs of the Passive Man it destroys the Active; but when the Active is destroyed, the Passive can no longer be cared for. When a society is based on the needs of the Active Man, he carries the Passive ones along on his energy and raises them as he rises, as the whole society rises. 
This has been the pattern of all human progress.

Some humanitarians demand a collective state because of their pity for the incompetent or Passive Man. For his sake they wish to harness the Active. But the Active Man cannot function in harness. And once he is destroyed, the destruction of the Passive Man follows automatically. So if pity is the humanitarians' first consideration, then in the name of pity, if nothing else, they should leave the Active Man free to function, in order to help the Passive. There is no other way to help him in the long run.

The history of mankind is the history of the struggle between the Active Man and the Passive, between the individual and the collective. The countries which have produced the happiest men, the highest standards of living and the greatest cultural advances have been the countries where the power of the collective — of the government, of the statewas limited and the individual was given freedom of independent action. 

As examples: The rise of Rome, with its conception of law based on a citizen's rights, over the collectivist barbarism of its time. The rise of England, with a system of government based on the Magna Carta, over collectivist, totalitarian Spain. The rise of the United States to a degree of achievement unequaled in history by grace of the individual freedom and independence which our Constitution gave each citizen against the collective.

While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress:  
Individual Man in independent action.  
Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery.
A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe.  
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.



We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.

Collectivism is not the ``New Order of Tomorrow.´´ It is the order of a very dark yesterday. But there is a New Order of Tomorrow. It belongs to Individual Manthe only creator of any tomorrows humanity has ever been granted. 

originally published : Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90