Claim: Ayn Rand supported collectivism.
Evidence: She is known for her two best-selling novels , The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Objectivism 's central tenets are that reality exists independently of consciousness , that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception , that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic , that the proper moral purpose of one 's life is the pursuit of one 's own happiness -LRB- rational self-interest -RRB- , that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism , and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans ' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form -- a work of art -- that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.