Altruism and Ayn Rand.

Altruism means helping someone and expect nothing from that help. Few people may be in this category but large part of the society people help anyone on the basis of return in future or even hoping for emotional return like happiness,friendship etc. But Ayn rand is quite opposite of that altruism and strongly argued about it. She said there is no such thing as selfless deed in the world , even if it is you seems to mistaken it because directly or indirectly people want return either materially or emotionally. Even in case of family members People invest in their children such that they can take care of them in future.
People can confuse this with (opposite of altruism) selfishness but in reality it is not , this is actually the way people can understand their capacity and efficiency and work hard to increase their footprint in the society. If everyone help everyone as they can without any return then many people will stop working and rely only on help and that will kill incentive for them to be productive over longer term.
So in my view their is no such thing as a free lunch and people must have to realise that.