He wishes to prosper and find happiness, and realizes that he can best gain these values when all men commit themselves to peaceful cooperation and individual rights. Individuals who don't want to think for themselves have a very different outlook. At a turning point in Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny chooses to leave Atlantis and return to the world, Galt tells her why she should never lose hope that she will find a better life. Galt says this to an individual, but it could also be the whole of mankind. Humanity will be free as soon as the ruled realize that ideology, not brute force, is the rock upon which oppression rests - and that the way to end that oppression is to reject the ideology that sanctions it.
Freedom exists potentially so long as man exists.
To actualize this potential men must choose to liberate their minds and think for themselves.