May 24, 1946
Mr. Daniel Goodman
1677 – 54th Street
Brooklyn 4, New York
Dear Mr. Goodman:
Thank you for your letter.
I appreciate your interest in my work, but I can not accept your suggestion that I become a contributor to Analysis. Analysis is a publication advocating the single tax theory, to which I am most emphatically opposed. A theory which advocates state ownership of land is pure collectivism, and it doesn’t matter whether its advocates consider themselves individualists or not. Without private property in land there can be no private property right at all, and without property rights no other kind of rights are possible.
Since you seem sincerely interested in this subject, I suggest you read THE GOD OF THE MACHINE by Isabel Paterson, published by Putnams. It is the best book ever written on the philosophy, history and economics of a free society.
I am enclosing a copy of The Only Path To Tomorrow which you requested, and a printed letter of mine which might interest you.
Sincerely,
Ayn Rand