Equality 7-2521 is a freethinker living in a slave state. The state requires blind obedience to its decrees, which he refuses to render. He will not sacrifice his mind to the state's commands, the essence of the story's conflict. In Anthem, Ayn Rand shows the full reality of the ideals held by the Communists, Fascists, and their intellectual supporters. The underlying principle is collectivism: society Society is paramount, and the individual must be subordinated to its dictates. Collectivists hold that an individual exists solely to serve the state and has no "inalienable right" to a free life or to the pursuit of happiness. Thus the citizens of this story are like mindless robots. They are not permitted to think for themselves; they must blindly obey the commands of the Councils.
In his conscious thinking, Equality 7-2521 accepts collectivism, because it is all he has been taught; nobody in this society has ever heard any different ideas. But implicitly, at the subconscious level, he holds and lives by the opposite premise, individualism: the theory that individuals have the right to think for themselves, to use their own minds and judgment in the pursuit of truth. Further, Equality 7-2521 believes that individuals have the right to choose what they want out of life — in this case, he has the right to pursue a career as a scientist because it is what he loves. Individuals, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, have an "inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." In his individualism, Equality 7-2521 espouses the same ideals that form the heart of the American political system. In his rejection of collectivism, he shuns the principles of the Nazis and Communists.
