Furthermore, Rand responds to criticism that Anthem is unfair to the ideals of collectivism. She points to the state of the world in 1946 to show that forced labor and co-opting the profits of the work of individuals are accepted and advocated practices. She claims that the world does in fact contain councils of the kind she describes in Anthem, and that if her novella seems exaggerated, it is only because the world has not yet totally fallen into collective despair. Nevertheless, she says, the world is headed for just such a collapse, and Anthem is meant to change the minds of those who believe that socialism can exist without leading directly to its logical conclusion. This conclusion, she believes, is the disembodiment of the individual, the boredom and fear of the citizenry, and the inability of society to reap the benefit of individual work and products.