[Hank Kerchief]

“Individualism is the opposite of dependency, not collectivism.”

I think your quibble is more semantic than philosophical. Rand regarded “independence” the nature of individualism:

“Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.” [For the New Intellectual,—The Fountainhead, “The Soul Of An Individualist”]

But collectivism is anything that is put above the individual and to which an individual is subordinated, whether it is a state, a society, a neighborhood, a club or a church. If individualism is not the opposite of collectivism, what is?

Collectivism does not have to be forced on people. Many people willing surrender their individualism and independence for the bowl of mush called security, for example.

Hank

[aruanan]

“Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.” [For the New Intellectual,—The Fountainhead, “The Soul Of An Individualist”]

Yes, but what man is and makes of himself in society is vastly different than what man would be or could make of himself if dropped alone and naked into almost any place in the "natural" world.