Ayn Rand , born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, was best known for developing the philosophy of Objectivism and for writing the novels We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged.
Her philosophy and her fiction both emphasize, above all, the concepts of individualism, rational egoism ("rational self-interest"), and capitalism, which she believed should be implemented fully via laissez-faire capitalism. She believed that man must choose his values and actions by reason; that the individual has a right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and that no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force, or impose ideas on others by physical force. Her politics have been described as minarchism and libertarianism, though she never used the first term and detested the second.
The express goal of Rand's fiction was to showcase the idealized Randian hero, a man whose ability and independence causes conflict with society, who nevertheless perseveres to achieve his goals.
The Fountainhead (1949)
