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Individualism and Collectivism

Principles of Individualism

Individualism: values placed upon the primacy of the individual - “me” before “we” (PRICES)

Private property

  • Lands and homes, businesses and intellectual property

  • 1% of the English own 50% of the UK’s land.

Rule of Law

  • Everyone is subject to the law.

  • The government only has the powers that it is given by law.

  • Enforced by courts and the independent judiciary

  • Prevents harm to individuals

Individual rights and freedoms

  • Charter rights and the American bill of rights

Competition

  • No competition: telecom and airlines

  • Lots of competition: vehicles, clothes and food industries

Economic freedom

  • As individuals: to buy, sell and work as you want (labour, ideas and products)

  • As corporations: taxes and regulations can be seen as a restriction of economic freedom in respect to investment, buying and selling.

  • Consumer sovereignty: an example of economic freedom — e.g. Blackberry going bankrupt

Self interest

  • People do whats best for them because they benefit

    • Self interest works well when people are able to pull themselves up — thereby benefitting society because everyone takes care of themselves.

    • When people do not have assets, they are often limited and unable to work in their own self interest.

Principles of collectivism: CCCAPE

Cooperation

  • we all work together → cooperative corporations are working class people who work together to avoid exploitation by pooling resources

Collective interest

  • interests of the collective group; could be economic, political, humanitarian or environmental

  • especially when the interest can be reached more effectively by a group

Collective responsibility

  • holding the group responsible for the actions of individuals

  • e.g. MADD, authoritarian government, duty to assist

Adherence to collective norms

  • conduct/values/appearance standards imposed upon the group, what is normal

  • can become an echo chamber or reduce diversity

Public property

  • property that is owned by the state or community

  • an ongoing debate

Economic equality → a spectrum

  • progressive taxation

  • equal wages for similar work

  • social programs

  • guaranteed annual income

  • elimination of private property

Addressed by ideologies

  • interpretations of history

  • beliefs about human nature

  • beliefs about the structure of society

  • visions of the future

Marxism

Interpretative history

An ongoing class struggle of peoples, between the bourgeoisie and common peoples → a projection into the future

Human nature

Humans are intrinsically inclined to work alongside each other to overthrow inequality → therefore humans are good.

Societal structure

Factories, production, assets and property are to be owned by everyone - focusing these economics onto workers in an instance where privately owned property practically does not exist → creates equality for the working class

Visions for the future

Government will wither away and become redundant as workers work in the interests of each other — only accomplishable when capitalism is violently overthrown by a pro-worker dictatorship.

Social Contract: an agreement within society to accept government; emphasis on security and in return rights are given up

Philosophers & Theories

Thomas Hobbes

  • collectivist; focused on security

  • English and lived through the English Civil War

  • Had a negative view of human nature: in a state of nature, there would be conflict and violence

    • “and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

  • Therefore advocated for a strong, powerful government → a sovereign power like a king that would govern like a leviathan

    • the sovereign would have unlimited power in response to a threat: the priority: security.

  • in return, rights are given up in exchange for security.

  • use in discussions of political power and rights

John Locke

  • individualist; father of liberalism

  • People by nature are free and equal, rejecting the nature that people are naturally subject to monarchy

  • People are rational

  • People have inherent rights (born with them) to life, liberty and property

  • Therefore, individualist based on the focus on rights and individual autonomy (liberties)

  • Limited government

    • Some rights are given up to the government to ensure stability, comfort, liberty and property rights → therefore there are limited taxes

    • Government can only exist with the consent of the people

    • Promotion of common good and rights

    • Failure of the government means it can be replaced and resisted.

    • e.g. infrastructure and security

Secularism: separation between church and state; there would be no religious wars

Montesquieu

  • how to avoid corruption and despotism

    • separate powers into branches

    • all bodies are bound by the rule of law (constitution)

    • framed the American constitution

    • Legislative/Executive/Judicial

Adam Smith

  • to best meet our needs, we should practice “laissez faire” (leave alone) capitalism

    • no trade barriers

    • end of subsidies and government monopoly

    • free market, small government

    • market forces (e.g. supply and demand) regulate the economy

    • The Invisible Hand → supply and demand, consumer sovereignty

    • Father of Capitalism

  • we can buy and sell whatever we want based upon supply and demand — as long as its legal.

  • The Wealth of Nations

    • not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest”

John-Stuart Mill

  • Father of Liberalism → wrote a book called “On Liberty”

  • Importance of individual freedoms — government required to step in and protect

    • “power can only be used against 1 person to protect the many”

    • a person is capable of deciding for themselves unless society is affected

John Jacques Rousseau

  • “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”

    • alive during the French Revolution, where everyone had to work to support the lifestyles of the 2nd and 1st Estate

  • People are naturally good → wrote essay The Social Contract

  • Private property leads to corruption and selfishness

    • we should live together peacefully

    • when government fails, people can remove the government

      • however, it is not instantaneous

Karl Marx

  • Father of Communism

  • beliefs strongly in economic equality

  • abolishing private property

  • dictatorship of the proletariat

  • Working Class v. Bourgeoisee conflict leads to a revolution

  • “Let ruling classes tremble at the idea of revolution… the proletariat have nothing to lose but chains… the world to win… working peoples of the world unite!”

Other key terms

  • Beliefs/values: ideas and understandings that a person holds to be true, often influenced by such things such as culture, language, religion, gender, worldview; ideas and understandings that people hold to be important or who they are as individuals

  • Human interdependence: the idea that individuals do not live their lives in isolation, but rather depend on oneanother in many ways

  • Capitalism: an economic system based on free markers, fair competition, wise consumers and profit-motivated producers, in which a minimum of government involvement is factored.

  • Communism: a system of society with property vested in the community and each member working for the common benefit according to his or her capacity and receiving according to his or her needs

  • Socialism: an ideology that contains the belief that resources should be controlled by the public for the benefit of everyone in society, and not by private interests for the benefit of private owners and investors

  • Ideological spectrum: a diagram on which ideologies can be organized according to a particular set of criteria, such as the extent to which they emphasize collectivism or individualism, which appear on opposite ends of the spectrum

  • Radicalism: new/innovative, e.g. Theory of Evolution

  • Reactionary: back to the past, either actual past or an imagined past

    • e.g. the Aryan nation never existed

    • e.g. restricting womens education in Iran to 1950s levels

  • Facism: strong economic freedom for the elites, designed to destroy communism

  • Egalitarianism: ideology of equality

  • Elitism: ideology of the elites

  • Status quo: keep things the same

  • Progressive: make things better

  • Welfare state: where government provides some form of social services

  • Civil disobedience: peaceful/non-violent protest

  • Deregulation: removal of economic freedoms

MN

Individualism and Collectivism

Principles of Individualism

Individualism: values placed upon the primacy of the individual - “me” before “we” (PRICES)

Private property

  • Lands and homes, businesses and intellectual property

  • 1% of the English own 50% of the UK’s land.

Rule of Law

  • Everyone is subject to the law.

  • The government only has the powers that it is given by law.

  • Enforced by courts and the independent judiciary

  • Prevents harm to individuals

Individual rights and freedoms

  • Charter rights and the American bill of rights

Competition

  • No competition: telecom and airlines

  • Lots of competition: vehicles, clothes and food industries

Economic freedom

  • As individuals: to buy, sell and work as you want (labour, ideas and products)

  • As corporations: taxes and regulations can be seen as a restriction of economic freedom in respect to investment, buying and selling.

  • Consumer sovereignty: an example of economic freedom — e.g. Blackberry going bankrupt

Self interest

  • People do whats best for them because they benefit

    • Self interest works well when people are able to pull themselves up — thereby benefitting society because everyone takes care of themselves.

    • When people do not have assets, they are often limited and unable to work in their own self interest.

Principles of collectivism: CCCAPE

Cooperation

  • we all work together → cooperative corporations are working class people who work together to avoid exploitation by pooling resources

Collective interest

  • interests of the collective group; could be economic, political, humanitarian or environmental

  • especially when the interest can be reached more effectively by a group

Collective responsibility

  • holding the group responsible for the actions of individuals

  • e.g. MADD, authoritarian government, duty to assist

Adherence to collective norms

  • conduct/values/appearance standards imposed upon the group, what is normal

  • can become an echo chamber or reduce diversity

Public property

  • property that is owned by the state or community

  • an ongoing debate

Economic equality → a spectrum

  • progressive taxation

  • equal wages for similar work

  • social programs

  • guaranteed annual income

  • elimination of private property

Addressed by ideologies

  • interpretations of history

  • beliefs about human nature

  • beliefs about the structure of society

  • visions of the future

Marxism

Interpretative history

An ongoing class struggle of peoples, between the bourgeoisie and common peoples → a projection into the future

Human nature

Humans are intrinsically inclined to work alongside each other to overthrow inequality → therefore humans are good.

Societal structure

Factories, production, assets and property are to be owned by everyone - focusing these economics onto workers in an instance where privately owned property practically does not exist → creates equality for the working class

Visions for the future

Government will wither away and become redundant as workers work in the interests of each other — only accomplishable when capitalism is violently overthrown by a pro-worker dictatorship.

Social Contract: an agreement within society to accept government; emphasis on security and in return rights are given up

Philosophers & Theories

Thomas Hobbes

  • collectivist; focused on security

  • English and lived through the English Civil War

  • Had a negative view of human nature: in a state of nature, there would be conflict and violence

    • “and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

  • Therefore advocated for a strong, powerful government → a sovereign power like a king that would govern like a leviathan

    • the sovereign would have unlimited power in response to a threat: the priority: security.

  • in return, rights are given up in exchange for security.

  • use in discussions of political power and rights

John Locke

  • individualist; father of liberalism

  • People by nature are free and equal, rejecting the nature that people are naturally subject to monarchy

  • People are rational

  • People have inherent rights (born with them) to life, liberty and property

  • Therefore, individualist based on the focus on rights and individual autonomy (liberties)

  • Limited government

    • Some rights are given up to the government to ensure stability, comfort, liberty and property rights → therefore there are limited taxes

    • Government can only exist with the consent of the people

    • Promotion of common good and rights

    • Failure of the government means it can be replaced and resisted.

    • e.g. infrastructure and security

Secularism: separation between church and state; there would be no religious wars

Montesquieu

  • how to avoid corruption and despotism

    • separate powers into branches

    • all bodies are bound by the rule of law (constitution)

    • framed the American constitution

    • Legislative/Executive/Judicial

Adam Smith

  • to best meet our needs, we should practice “laissez faire” (leave alone) capitalism

    • no trade barriers

    • end of subsidies and government monopoly

    • free market, small government

    • market forces (e.g. supply and demand) regulate the economy

    • The Invisible Hand → supply and demand, consumer sovereignty

    • Father of Capitalism

  • we can buy and sell whatever we want based upon supply and demand — as long as its legal.

  • The Wealth of Nations

    • not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest”

John-Stuart Mill

  • Father of Liberalism → wrote a book called “On Liberty”

  • Importance of individual freedoms — government required to step in and protect

    • “power can only be used against 1 person to protect the many”

    • a person is capable of deciding for themselves unless society is affected

John Jacques Rousseau

  • “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”

    • alive during the French Revolution, where everyone had to work to support the lifestyles of the 2nd and 1st Estate

  • People are naturally good → wrote essay The Social Contract

  • Private property leads to corruption and selfishness

    • we should live together peacefully

    • when government fails, people can remove the government

      • however, it is not instantaneous

Karl Marx

  • Father of Communism

  • beliefs strongly in economic equality

  • abolishing private property

  • dictatorship of the proletariat

  • Working Class v. Bourgeoisee conflict leads to a revolution

  • “Let ruling classes tremble at the idea of revolution… the proletariat have nothing to lose but chains… the world to win… working peoples of the world unite!”

Other key terms

  • Beliefs/values: ideas and understandings that a person holds to be true, often influenced by such things such as culture, language, religion, gender, worldview; ideas and understandings that people hold to be important or who they are as individuals

  • Human interdependence: the idea that individuals do not live their lives in isolation, but rather depend on oneanother in many ways

  • Capitalism: an economic system based on free markers, fair competition, wise consumers and profit-motivated producers, in which a minimum of government involvement is factored.

  • Communism: a system of society with property vested in the community and each member working for the common benefit according to his or her capacity and receiving according to his or her needs

  • Socialism: an ideology that contains the belief that resources should be controlled by the public for the benefit of everyone in society, and not by private interests for the benefit of private owners and investors

  • Ideological spectrum: a diagram on which ideologies can be organized according to a particular set of criteria, such as the extent to which they emphasize collectivism or individualism, which appear on opposite ends of the spectrum

  • Radicalism: new/innovative, e.g. Theory of Evolution

  • Reactionary: back to the past, either actual past or an imagined past

    • e.g. the Aryan nation never existed

    • e.g. restricting womens education in Iran to 1950s levels

  • Facism: strong economic freedom for the elites, designed to destroy communism

  • Egalitarianism: ideology of equality

  • Elitism: ideology of the elites

  • Status quo: keep things the same

  • Progressive: make things better

  • Welfare state: where government provides some form of social services

  • Civil disobedience: peaceful/non-violent protest

  • Deregulation: removal of economic freedoms