The term for what Rand warns against or "foreshadows" for a society in which individuals refuse to think and act for themselves is called collectivism. This philosophy promotes the idea that society can dictate a person's life and make them do things that have no concern for the individual, but only for how they benefit society (or a government) as a whole. Equality expresses this belief of his society when he says "there is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of their brothers."

Rand allows us to see the negative results of this collectivism by allowing us to view the primitive setting of Equality's world. When a government determines the place and value of an individual and subjects them to its beliefs with force and punishment, an individual's potential to create and achieve is limited. Limiting the individual in this way also limits the society itself, as some of the most important inventions of history were created by individuals who ignored society's opinions. These individuals' creations provided wonderful things for the whole of society to use for its advancement. Rand cautions us that without this individual freedom of thought and action, we are doomed to stall not only in terms of innovation and technology, but also in terms of in personal fulfillment.

Rand warns that a collectivist government or group can destroy personal happiness. She implies that to be truly happy, we must embrace the "I" in a society that rules through "we." Equality expresses her message when he states, "We lived not when we toiled for our brothers, we were only weary." Equality only finds true happiness when he embraces his own individual gifts and emotions, refusing to let the values and mores of his society hold him back.

Ayn Rand's Anthem is a cautionary tale, meant to warn against the dangers of collectivism. Rand lived in the Soviet Union as a teenager and so experienced life in a communist dictatorship firsthand before coming to the United States in 1926. She wrote Anthem in 1937, a time of Stalinist excesses.

The book celebrates individualism. Foreshadowing is not exactly the right term to describe what the book does. It would be more accurate to call it a cautionary tale, warning readers not to allow too much groupthink or conformity to take hold in a society. When nobody is allowed to pursue excellence or think for themselves, then society as whole backslides into barbarism. Trying to enforce complete equality means, according to Rand, that the most talented people are dragged down into mediocrity. Rand's work is deliberately very simple, opposing an extreme version of repressive collectivism that suppresses heroic individualism.

Most societies, in fact, thrive by both promoting individualism and assuring some social equality so that the culture doesn't descend into the chaos of ruthless social Darwinism.