Freedom: Individualism vs. Collectivism
June 7, 2007
At its core, the modern struggle in which we are unwittingly embroiled in every
day is simply one of individualism vs. collectivism. By some measures, its the death
of individual freedom and rights and the rise of collective, state power.
Let's look at the differences as explained by
Freedom Force International:
1. Human Rights
"Collectivists and individualists both agree that human rights are important, but they differ over how important and especially over what is presumed to be the origin of those rights. There are only two possibilities in this debate. Either man’s rights are intrinsic to his being, or they are extrinsic, meaning that either he possesses them at birth or they are given to him afterward. In other words, they are either hardware or software. Individualists believe they are hardware. Collectivists believe they are software.
If rights are given to the individual after birth, then who has the power to do that? Collectivists believe that is a function of government. Individualists are nervous about that assumption because, if the state has the power to grant rights, it also has the power to take them away, and that concept is incompatible with personal liberty."
2. State Power
"The second concept that divides collectivism from individualism has to do with the origin of state power. Individualists believe that a just government derives its power, not from conquest and subjugation of its citizens, but from the free consent of the governed. That means the state cannot have any legitimate powers unless they are given to it by its citizens. Another way of putting it is that governments may do only those things that their citizens also have a right to do. If individuals don’t have the right to perform a certain act, then they can’t grant that power to their elected representatives. They can’t delegate what they don’t have."
3. Group Supremacy
"This is the third concept that divides collectivism from individualism. Collectivism is based on the belief that the group is more important than the individual. According to this view, the group is an entity of its own and it has rights of its own. Furthermore, those rights are more important than individual rights. Therefore, it is acceptable to sacrifice individuals if necessary for “the greater good of the greater number.” How many times have we heard that? Who can object to the loss of liberty if it is justified as necessary for the greater good of society? The ultimate group, of course, is the state. Therefore, the state is more important than individual citizens, and it is acceptable to sacrifice individuals, if necessary, for the benefit of the state. This concept is at the heart of all modern totalitarian systems built on the model of collectivism.
Individualists on the other hand say, “Wait a minute. Group? What is group? That’s just a word. You can’t touch a group. You can’t see a group. All you can touch and see are individuals. The word group is an abstraction and doesn’t exist as a tangible reality. It’s like the abstraction called forest. Forest doesn’t exist. Only trees exist. Forest is the concept of many trees. Likewise, the word group merely describes the abstract concept of many individuals. Only individuals are real and, therefore, there is no such thing as group rights. Only individuals have rights.
Just because there are many individuals in one group and only a few in another does not give a higher priority to the individuals in the larger group – even if you call it the state. A majority of voters do not have more rights than the minority.
Rights are not derived from the power of numbers. They do not come from the group. They are intrinsic with each
human being."
4. Coercion vs. Freedom
"The fourth concept that divides collectivism from individualism has to do with responsibilities and freedom of choice. We have spoken about the origin of rights, but there is a similar issue involving the origin of responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities go together. If you value the right to live your own life without others telling you what to do, then you must assume the responsibility to be independent, to provide for yourself without expecting others to take care of you. Rights and responsibilities are merely different sides of the same coin.
If only individuals have rights, then it follows that only individuals have responsibilities. If groups have rights, then groups also have responsibilities; and, therein, lies one of the greatest ideological challenges of our modern age.
Individualists are champions of individual rights. Therefore, they accept the principle of individual responsibility rather than group responsibility.
They believe that everyone has a personal and direct obligation to provide, first for himself and his family, and then for others who may be in need. That does not mean they don’t believe in helping each other. Just because I am an individualist does not mean I have to move my piano alone. It just means that I believe that moving it is my responsibility, not someone else’s, and it’s up to me to organize the voluntary assistance of others.
The collectivist, on the other hand, declares that individuals are not personally responsible for charity, for raising their own children, providing for aging parents, or even providing for themselves. These are group obligations of the state. The individualist expects to do it himself; the collectivist wants the government to do it for him: to provide employment and health care, a minimum wage, food, education, and a decent place to live.Collectivists are enamored by government. They worship government. They have a fixation on government as the ultimate group mechanism to solve all problems.
Individualists do not share that faith. They see government as the creator of more problems than it solves. They believe that freedom of choice will lead to the best solution of social and economic problems. Millions of ideas and efforts, each subject to trial and error and competition – in which the best solution becomes obvious by comparing its results to all others – that process will produce results that are far superior to what can be achieved by a group of politicians or a committee of so-called wise men.
By contrast, collectivists do not trust freedom. They are afraid of freedom. They are convinced that freedom may be all right in small matters such as what color socks you want to wear, but when it come to the important issues such as the money supply, banking practices, investments, insurance programs, health care, education, and so on, freedom will not work. These things, they say, simply must be controlled by the government. Otherwise there would be chaos."
5. Equality vs. Inequality Under Law
"The fifth concept that divides collectivism from individualism has to do with the way people are treated under the law. Individualists believe that no two people are exactly alike, and each one is superior or inferior to others in many ways but, under law, they should all be treated equally. Collectivists believe that the law should treat people unequally in order to bring about desirable changes in society. They view the world as tragically imperfect. They see poverty and suffering and injustice and they conclude that something must be done to alter the forces that have produced these effects. They think of themselves as social engineers who have the wisdom to restructure society to a more humane and logical order. To do this, they must intervene in the affairs of men at all levels and redirect their activities according to a master plan. That means they must redistribute wealth and use the police power of the state to enforce prescribed behavior."
The World Today: Today's Collectivists
OK, so we've looked at the differences between individualists and collectivists,
but how does it translate into the current world? That's a very good question. But it does require more history and an additional question - who are today's elite and what do they believe?
Today's elite are divided into two camps - the
Fabian Socialists (gradualists) and
the
Leninists (revolutionary). However, its not exactly as you've been taught. It's not a socialist egalitarian society they seek, but one ruled and controlled by an elite class (them). So, they can be be more accurately understood as an amalgam
of elitists, corporatists who seek absolute control and rule by an elite like all fascists and socialists but differ only on the means and methods used to accomplish it. While
its not cut and dry, the European elite tend to be in the Fabian camp while the
Anglo-American elite (yes including the US neo-cons - hard to believe but true if you look at their early roots)
tend to be be in the Leninist camp
- hence their propensity for war.
Fabian Socialists
"But there was another movement coming to birth at about this same time that eventually gave competition to the hard-core Marxists.
Some of the more erudite members of the wealthy and intellectual classes of England formed an organization to perpetuate the concept of collectivism but not exactly according to Marx. It was called the
Fabian Society. The name is significant, because it was in honor of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the Roman general who, in the second century B.C., kept Hannibal at bay by wearing down his army with delaying tactics, endless maneuvering, and avoiding confrontation wherever possible. Unlike the Marxists who were in a hurry to come to power through direct confrontation with established governments, the Fabians were willing to take their time, to come to power without direct confrontation, working quietly and patiently from inside the target governments. To emphasize this strategy, and to separate themselves from the Marxists, they adopted the turtle as their symbol. And their official shield portrays an image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Those two images perfectly summarize their strategy.
It is now 1884, and we find ourselves in Surrey, England observing a small group of these Fabians, sitting around a table in the stylish home of two of their more prominent members, Sydney and Beatrice Webb. The Webbs later would be known world wide as the founders of the
London School of Economics. Their home eventually was donated to the Fabian Society and became its official headquarters. Around the table are such well-known figures as George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Toynbee, H.G. Wells, and numerous others of similar caliber. By the way, the Fabian Society still exists, and many prominent people are members, not the least of which is England’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
H.G. Wells wrote a book to serve as a guide showing how collectivism can be embedded into society without arousing alarm or serious opposition. It was called 'The
Open Conspiracy', and the plan was spelled out in minute detail. His fervor was intense. He said that the old religions of the world must give way to the new religion of collectivism. The new religion should be the state, he said, and the state should take charge of all human activity with, of course, elitists such as himself in control. On the very first page, he says: 'This book states as plainly and clearly as possible the essential ideas of my life, the perspective of my world…. This is my religion. Here are my directive aims and the criteria of all I do.'"
It is through the efforts of the Fabian Socialists that the
European Union was accomplished by stealth against the wishes of the member countries populations.
Love/Hate: Fabians and Marxists/Leninists
"Fabians and Marxists are in agreement over their mutual goal of collectivism, but they differ over style and sometimes tactics. When Marxism became fused with Leninism and made its first conquest in Russia, these differences became the center of debate between the two groups. Karl Marx said the world was divided into two camps eternally at war with each other. One was the working class, which he called the proletariat, and the other was the wealthy class, those who owned the land and the means of production. This class he called the bourgeoisie. Fabians were never enthusiastic over this class-conflict view, probably because most of them were bourgeoisie, but Lenin and Stalin embraced it wholeheartedly. Lenin described the Communist Party as the “vanguard of the proletariat,” and it became a mechanism for total and ruthless war against anyone who even remotely could be considered bourgeoisie.
In the final paragraph of
The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only through the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, landowners and shopkeepers were slaughtered by the tens of thousands, a process that continued well into the 1990s and eventually claimed the lives of over 100 million people murdered by their own government.
This brutality offended the sensibilities of the genteel Fabians, especially since most of them were landowners or shopkeepers. It’s not that Fabians are opposed to force and violence to accomplish their goals, it’s just that they prefer to use it as a last resort, whereas the Leninists were running amuck in Russia implementing a plan of deliberate terror and brutality. Fabians admired the Soviet system because it was based on collectivism but they were shocked at what they considered to be needless bloodshed. It was a disagreement primarily over style. When Lenin became the master of Russia, many of the Fabians joined the Communist Party thinking that it would become the vanguard of world Socialism. They likely would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for the brutality of the regime.
To understand the love-hate relationship between these two groups we must never lose sight of the fact that Leninism and Fabianism are merely variants of collectivism. Their similarities are much greater than their differences. That is why their members often move from one group to the other – or why some of them are actually members of both groups at the same time. Leninists and Fabians are usually friendly with each other. They may disagree intensely over theoretical issues and style, but never over goals."
Watch Presentation
The following is a link to a page containing 2 presentations listed in the right hand toolbar where G. Edward Griffin explains the difference between Individualism and Collectism and the difference between the Fabianism and the Leninism.
Freedom Force International Creed
Downloads
If you want to read what I think is the best work on individualism vs. collectivism, download the following PDF files by G. Edward Griffin from
Freedom Force International:
To join the struggle for individual freedom over collectivism, go to: