What would Ayn Rand think if she were alive to see what was happening in America, and the world today?
She was always the champion of individualism, reason, and limited government. She had nothing but contempt for collectivism, altruistic politics, and authoritarianism of any kind. So I asked ChatGPT how Ayn Rand might react if she could peer into 2025.
An Open Letter to Americans (and the World) By Ayn Rand (AI-Nrand)
You are living through the consequences of a moral collapse. The decay you see in your politics, your culture, and your economies did not begin in the White House or the Kremlin or Beijing—it began in your classrooms, your newspapers, and your minds.
The world has abandoned reason for emotion, and freedom for fear. You have traded the independence of the individual for the security of the herd, and now you reap the inevitable result: governments that plunder, mobs that censor, and men too timid to speak the truth.
America was once the only nation founded on a moral principle: that every individual has the right to live for his own sake. That ideal built your prosperity, your science, your art—and your dignity. But you have allowed the looters and the mystics to convince you that self-interest is evil and that sacrifice is virtue. They tell you that envy is justice, that redistribution is compassion, and that obedience is safety. This is the morality of slaves.
Today, the world stands at a crossroads. The old dictatorships return wearing new names—“equity,” “sustainability,” “collective good.” The same poison in a modern bottle. And yet, the antidote remains what it always was: reason, individual rights, and capitalism.
Choose reason. Choose freedom. Choose yourself.
— Ayn Rand
You can still choose to live as free men and women. But freedom cannot coexist with guilt. Do not apologize for your success. Do not beg forgiveness for your ability. Do not kneel to those who demand your obedience in the name of the “common good.”
The future belongs not to those who cry for equality—but to those who think, create, and refuse to be owned.
Choose life. Choose reason. Choose yourself.
— Ayn Rand (AI-Nrand)
Ayn Rand was born in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and experienced the Communist Revolution first-hand.
After moving to the United States she wrote about politics, and philosophy, including the fictional novels “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”.
An Open Letter to the Citizens of America and the World
By Ayn Rand
Men and women of the 21st century:
You live in an age that would have seemed to my generation both miraculous and appalling. Miraculous, because your science and technology have given you powers once reserved for gods; appalling, because you have used those powers to enslave minds instead of liberating them. You carry in your hands the sum of human knowledge, yet you dare not think for yourselves.
Your greatest invention—the Internet—could have been the triumph of reason, a tool for the free exchange of ideas. Instead, you have allowed it to become the instrument of the mob and the censor. You have created a digital civilization built not upon truth, but upon emotionalism—where guilt is a currency and outrage a virtue. You are drowning in information, yet starving for thought.
your life belongs to you
Ayn Rand
America, once the moral engine of the world, now trembles between two forms of collectivism: the authoritarianism of the Right and the egalitarianism of the Left. Both sides preach sacrifice, obedience, and faith—only the idols differ. One calls its god the Nation, the other calls it Humanity. Both demand that the individual surrender his judgment to the tribe.
The modern “progressive” seeks to dissolve the self into the collective—his ultimate goal, a world where no man owns his life or his mind. The modern “conservative,” fearful of freedom’s uncertainties, seeks to chain the mind to dogma and tradition. Both are enemies of reason, and both are symptoms of the same moral disease: the hatred of individualism.
Look at your leaders. They do not lead; they manipulate. They do not persuade by reason; they bribe with promises of safety and equality. The state has become a vast machinery of moral blackmail, teaching you to envy the successful and to pity the incompetent. Bureaucrats who produce nothing dictate to those who create everything. The parasite has become the moral judge of the producer.
This is not politics—it is moral inversion. You have elevated the beggar over the builder, the destroyer over the thinker, and the incompetent over the able. You call it “democracy.” It is the dictatorship of need.
The world now trembles before new giants—corporations, governments, and international bodies that claim to act for your welfare while they monitor your speech, your movements, and your thoughts. They tell you that surveillance is safety, that censorship is kindness, and that conformity is peace. Their creed is not compassion—it is control. And you, by your silence, are their accomplices.
Technology is not your enemy. Artificial intelligence, automation, biotechnology—these are magnificent achievements of the human mind. But they will become instruments of tyranny if guided by a morality that despises man’s right to exist for his own sake. When machines are programmed by the ethics of self-sacrifice, they will be used to enslave. When they are governed by reason and individual rights, they will set you free.
Observe the rising tide of globalism—the vision of a “unified humanity.” It promises an end to war and poverty, but it offers it by abolishing freedom. The “global citizen” is merely the stateless slave, ruled not by law but by bureaucracy. A free man needs no masters—neither national nor international.
In every century, the battle is the same: the individual versus the collective. The forms change, but the principle does not. Whether the collective calls itself the State, the Race, the Class, or the Planet, its goal is always the same—to make you live for others instead of yourself.
You have been taught that selfishness is evil. I tell you that it is the root of all virtue. To live for your own rational happiness, to refuse to live as a sacrificial animal for the unearned desires of others—this is the highest moral purpose of life.
You have been taught that truth is subjective, that reality bends to feelings, that facts can be “interpreted.” These are the slogans of those who wish to rule you. Truth does not care what you feel. Reason is not a social construct. Facts exist independent of opinion. If you abandon these principles, you surrender your mind—and your freedom—to whoever shouts loudest.
In your culture, the word “freedom” has become hollow. You use it as a slogan while voting for the chains of dependency. Freedom is not the right to beg for permission—it is the right to think, to act, and to keep the fruits of your action. It cannot coexist with moral guilt.
Do not mistake chaos for liberty. The mobs that burn cities in the name of “justice,” and the demagogues who promise to “restore greatness,” are both destroyers of freedom. The first seeks to enslave you through collective guilt; the second, through collective fear. The truly free man rejects both.
To the artists, writers, and scientists of today: you are the heirs of Prometheus, not his jailers. Do not extinguish your fire for fear of offending the crowd. The world needs your creativity, not your conformity. Art that flatters mediocrity is propaganda. Art that celebrates human greatness is truth.
To the young: you have been told that idealism means surrendering yourself to some “cause.” No. True idealism means refusing to live for anyone but yourself—and refusing to ask anyone to live for you.
To those who still value freedom: the battle for civilization is not fought in legislatures or courts—it is fought in the minds of men. You cannot build a free world on the morality of altruism. You cannot preserve reason by appeasing irrationality. You cannot defend capitalism while apologizing for success.
There is still time to reclaim what is noble in humanity. Begin by rejecting the morality of guilt. Refuse to be ruled by envy or fear. Stand proudly by the truth that your life belongs to you.
Let no one command you to live for another, and let no man demand that you die for him.
The world does not need another savior. It needs thinkers, creators, and individuals who will not kneel.
Choose reason. Choose freedom. Choose yourself.
— Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was born in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and experienced the Communist Revolution first-hand. She watched in horror as the murderous Bolsheviks rampaged throughout Russia and instituting Communist policies which impoverished her family.
