On Pages 33 and 34, of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Rand writes in ways that lead to egoists living together in a civil society, and their rational self-interests are harmonized, perhaps indirectly and unintentionally, for the common good: "If so, then man's only choice is to rob or be robbed, to destroy or be destroyed, to sacrifice others to any desire of his own or to sacrifice himself to any desire of others,; then man's only ethical alternative is to be a sadist or masochist.
The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another."
Were a society to be populated by rational egoists, none would stand for robbing others or being robbed, seeking to destroy none, and allowing none to destroy the self, sacrificing the self to no one, while exonerating others of the need to sacrifice themselves to oneself. All would be coequals--none master or slave, sadist or masochist, equal roughly in power portions. Rand foresees this situation and it is classless and egalitarian, more or less, and that is good social policy.
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