Reading Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal right now. The majority of this is copied directly from the first essay in the collection- What is Capitalism?

A free society has the principle of individual rights as its indispensable foundation.
Rights are a moral concept. They guide us from individual actions to our relationships with others. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
Every society is based on some code of ethics. Historically, the dominant ethics were tribal-collectivist. Under that conception, morality was a code applicable to individuals, but not society. Self-sacrificial devotion to social duty was regarded as the purpose of ethics in man’s earthly existence. Since there is no such entity as ‘society’, which is only a number of individuals, in practice this meant that the rulers of society were exempt from the moral law.  

The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the US was the subordination of society to moral law. The principle of man’s individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system- as a limitation on the power of the state, as man’s protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The US was the first moral society in history. All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The US regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals.

The collective views man’s life as belonging to society, to be disposed of as needed. Any freedom he enjoys is by permission of society. The US held that man’s life is his by right, that the right is a property of an individual, and that society as such has no rights. The only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.  

The most fundamental right is a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action, which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, furtherance, fulfillment, and enjoyment of his own life. This is the meaning of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  
The concept of a right pertains only to action- specifically to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference from other men. For every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive- of his freedom to act on his own judgment for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligation on them except they abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights. The right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
The right to property is a right to action: it is not a right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that he will earn any property, only that he will own it if he earns it.
These rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. Man is a rational being, and as such, it is his nature, and his right, to used his mind and act according to his free judgment. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being.

There are two potential violators of man’s rights: criminals and the government. The US Declaration of Independence said “in order to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” This provided the only justification of a government and defined its proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence. Thus, the government’s role was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant.

Rand holds a special disregard for ‘altruism’, which she claims is incompatible with freedom, capitalism, and individual rights. “One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.” Altruism is defined as: the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. I don’t quite understand why, if this is practiced on an individual basis, that it need be incompatible. I believe she is referring to the concept as a basis for society. So that if society is based on its individual members being sacrificial, especially to the point that ‘society’ requires it, then it is incompatible with individual rights and freedom.  

The gimmick, says Rand, was the switch of the concept of rights from the political to economic realm. Starting with Roosevelt in the 30’s, there was a new definition of rights “to” a series of goods. The question Rand asks is: at whose expense?
Jobs, food, clothing, homes, medical care, education, etc, do not grow in nature. They are man-made values- goods and services produced by men. Who, then, is to provide them?  
If men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, then those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. Any alleged right of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not, and cannot be a right.
A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort. The founders covered this when they spoke of the right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to happiness. A man has the right to take actions he deems necessary to achieve his happiness; it does not mean others must make him happy.  

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to a man’s rights. It holds the legal monopoly on the use of force. If an individual uses force against another, it is criminal, and the government has the obligation to intervene and protect. If the government uses force, there is no redress.