jbgotmar

106
More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.com
FROM NOVELIST TO PHILOSOPHER, 1944–1957
collectivism took the liberals over.” 16 The solution, then, was to shift
the principles of nineteenth-century liberalism onto different ethical
grounds that avoided altruism. Rand had a ready candidate at hand: her
own system of selfi shness that she had articulated in The Fountainhead.
Rand looked more favorably on Ludwig von Mises, Hayek’s mentor,
whose works she read during this time. As she explained to Leonard
Read, Mises made mistakes when it came to morality, going “into thin
air, into contradictions, into nonsense” whenever he discussed ethics.
But at least he was “for the most part unimpeachable” on economics.
Unlike Hayek, Mises was unwilling to consider political compromises
that restricted the free market. Like Rand, he considered capitalism an
absolute, and for that Rand was willing to forgive his failure to understand
and reject altruism. 17
Rand intended to make known her differences with Hayek and Mises
in a short nonfi ction work titled “The Moral Basis of Individualism.”
She proposed the project to Bobbs-Merrill as a booklet that would double
as promotional material for The Fountainhead, but her ambitions
for the project quickly grew. In her fi rst notes she resurrected several
concepts from her 1941 “Manifesto of Individualism,” including Active
Man and Passive Man. As her title indicated, however, there were signifi
cant differences between the two works. Where the “Manifesto” had
skirted morality in favor of emphasizing the dangers of totalitarianism,
now Rand wanted to make the case against altruism, which she
called “spiritual cannibalism.” She emphasized that her readers could
choose from two alternatives: “Independence of man from men is the
Life Principle. Dependence of man upon men is the Death Principle.” 18
This was the dilemma she had brought to life through Howard Roark
and Peter Keating. The challenge now was to explain it in simple terms
linking her discussion to a defense of the capitalist system.
As it turned out, writing “The Moral Basis of Individualism” was
much harder than Rand had anticipated. Nor did The Fountainhead
need much help. Like most publishers, Bobbs-Merrill had a strict paper
quota due to the war, and it was unable to keep up with demand for
Rand’s enormous novel until it subcontracted distribution of the book
to Blakiston, a small press with a large paper quota. Blakiston released
its own series of advertisements stressing the book’s themes that fi nally
satisfi ed Rand. In 1945 alone The Fountainhead sold 100,000 copies and
Fore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com