Ayn Rand: An iconic defender of property rights
Sixty-seven years ago this month, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was released. In the decades since the book was published, it has become something of a bible for those who believe in individual liberty and a constitutionally limited government. Rand herself is thought of as an oracle of the individualist philosophy—making her heroic to some and infamous to others.
As a staunch individualist, Rand was a fervent believer in property rights. In fact, she believed that individual human rights and property rights were inseparable, a precept she espoused in Atlas Shrugged. In a famous, albeit long-winded speech, Rand’s great hero John Galt says:
Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property. The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of ‘human rights’ versus ‘property rights,’ as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body. Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that ‘human rights’ are superior to ‘property rights’ simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of ‘human.’
Beautifully put, although dehumanizing those who ignore property rights is … a bit harsh. But that brash, matter-of-fact approach is on brand for Rand, who never suffered fools. And in her eyes, anyone who disagreed with her was a fool. It was this rambunctious spirit that made her the firecracker philosopher that she was.
Dramatic as Galt’s diatribe against the enemies of property may be, the point made in the 60-page monologue is spot on. For individuals to rightfully assert that they live in a society where they are truly free, they must have dominion over their own property without fear of government intrusion.
This is a theme in Rand’s nonfiction works as well. In The Virtue of Selfishness, she writes, “The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible”—a sentiment she shared with the Founding Fathers.
The pursuit of happiness is secured through property rights
While she had her critiques, Rand was a great admirer of the U.S. Constitution and its emphasis on protecting private property.
America’s first document, the Declaration of Independence, laid the foundation for the Constitution. The second paragraph of the Declaration states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In an earlier draft, Thomas Jefferson originally wrote “property” instead of “pursuit of happiness,” language quite similar to the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Both documents convey the same idea: The pursuit of individual prosperity and happiness and the protection of inalienable liberties are derived from property rights, an idea inspired by the great English philosopher John Locke, who similarly wrote in his “Second Treatise of Government,”
Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it.
“Even with death itself” is nearly as dramatic as something Rand herself would write. All this is to say, property rights as a core tenet of all individual rights is as American as apple pie. Why, then, did this idea have such an impact on Ayn Rand—a Russian-born immigrant?
The godmother of 20th-century individualism
Rand was born in Russia in 1905—a most tumultuous time politically for the country. She was just a young girl during the Russian Revolution and subsequent Communist takeover. Under Communism, private property was public enemy #1 and in the government’s quest to abolish it, Rand’s family became a target.
Rand’s father, Zelman Wolf Zakharovich Rosenbaum, owned a pharmacy in St. Petersburg that allowed him to provide for his family’s modest living. He was very much a self-made man who had grown up extremely poor. He worked to support his way through college, where he studied chemistry at the University of Warsaw.
The pharmacy kept his family clothed, fed, and housed, but they were far from wealthy. After the Bolsheviks came to power, his business was confiscated by the government, leaving the family struggling to stay financially afloat.
The memory of the nationalization of the family pharmacy was seared into Rand’s brain: “I felt the way he looked. His was one of helplessness, murderous frustration and indignation—but he could do absolutely nothing.”
He hadn’t been a particularly political man up until this point. But his family’s descent from middle class to poverty changed him. “His strongest issue was individualism; he was committed to reason,” Rand said. He refused to give into Communists and was willing to starve rather than work for them.
In 1925, Rand left her family and moved to the United States in search of the opportunity only individual liberty could provide. A few years after her arrival, she tried to get her family out of Russia. To her horror, she learned they had been killed by the Nazis during the Siege of Leningrad.
Rand watched the anti-property and anti-individual ideology destroy her family and her country—an experience that shaped her career. She dedicated her life’s work to speaking out against government intrusion on property rights and, thus, individual liberty. She once told her agent, “No one has ever come out of Soviet Russia to tell it to the world. That was my job.”
While Americans enjoyed more freedoms than Russia, Rand was critical of the government and warned that property rights were also under attack in the United States. She became a U.S. citizen in the 1930s and made a name for herself with her novels, which always featured villains scheming to strip the protagonists of their property. For her, that premise was not fictional at all.
Rand’s reputation soon expanded from novelist to political philosopher and provocateur. Never afraid to push buttons while advocating for liberty, she solidified her place as the godmother of 20th-century individualism.
Rand’s body of work and unique personality inspired generations of individualist thinkers and leaders. Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead have become potent “gateway” drugs to liberty, a fact that is so widely recognized that Jerome Tuccille wrote the humorous and aptly named book, It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand.
One person particularly drawn to Rand’s work was Ronald Reagan. While Rand was often critical of Reagan, there is no denying that his political career ushered in an era of rebirth for individualism in America. A feat for which Rand’s influence played a role.
It was during this philosophical renaissance that a group of attorneys from Reagan’s gubernatorial staff were inspired to start a public interest law firm devoted to protecting property rights. In 1973, Pacific Legal Foundation was born—and since then, we’ve helped countless American individuals stand up for their property rights.
Property rights, along with the separation of powers and equality and opportunity, are the cornerstone of the work we do at PLF because they are the cornerstone of individual liberty. Just like Ayn Rand, PLF believes that the right to own and put property to productive use is a source of personal security, dignity, and prosperity, protecting the freedom of individuals to shape their destiny.
