You make a good point about the natural human tendency to settle into authoritarianism. God knows dictatorships seem to spring up almost without effort, while free societies take a hell of a lot of work.

I theorized a long time ago that this is humanity's main flaw. As with many evolutionary results, intelligent primates are a kludge. Intelligence and its expression in altering one's environment is a largely individual process. Ayn Rand understood that. But our ancestors come from a long line of "alpha or omega" primates, instinctively wanting to either rule or be ruled, and establishing pecking order by ritual or real violence. Rand had no clue about that.

The conflict between these two aspects probably accounts for most of our history. One wonders what we would be like if we had evolved from a naturally individualistic, non-tribal creature, like an orangutan.

More peaceful, maybe. But I bet we would still be a long ways from landing on the Moon.

Your idea that intelligence doesn't really work without a group doesn't stand up very well. An individual could easily invent something new with absolutely no one else around, simply by reason and interaction with his environment.

That being said, society allows cooperation, and more importantly, specialization, which permits much faster progress.

Ayn Rand never said individuals should live on desert islands. She said they should interact without the use of force or fraud, and that people thrive when this happens.

It is often said that many inventors would not have been able to do what they have done without the inventors around them, or those that came before them. In many cases, this is true. Unfortunately, this statement is most often used to justify neutralizing the idea that the inventor owns the right to the product of his own effort.

The rationalizations for collectivism are almost infinite in number.