Chapter 17, "Racism", Ayn Rand (1963) Summary and Analysis

In this chapter, Rand centers her discussion of racism on the idea that racism is an immoral notion bred by collectivist thinking. She follows her analysis of racism and why it is a belief based on immoral, irrational behavior with a discussion on how the United States' government corrected racist thought and practice by implementing a government based on individuals' rights and a capitalist economic system. She then discusses how a new trend has resurfaced ("new" applying to the time Rand is writing this essay, in 1963) in the United States, which is trying to legalize racist ideology once again with the introduction of a civil rights bill (The Civil Rights Bill of 1964).

According to Rand, racism is "the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage" (p. 126). In...