But why have you launched into a criticism of collectivism and socialism? Am I supposed to be both because I’ve criticized capitalism and individualism? I’m not a collectivist or a socialist, especially if you’re coming at this from an American libertarian perspective. In that case, you should be aware that the rest of the world holds up those stereotypes of dreaded collectivism and socialism as laughingstocks brought on by Cold War demonization.
I contrast collectivism and individualism in “Cycles, Progress, and the Clash of Civilizations.” In any case, since you brought them up practically out of nowhere, I’ll say a few things about them here in response to your comment. You say collectivism is totalitarian, infantilizing, and contrary to empirical evidence about what works in society. You might be right about the extreme forms that have led to communism and fascism.
In this case, though, the rational, responsible outlook is to combine elements of collectivism/socialism and capitalism/individualism to avoid the drawbacks of the extreme forms of either system. Extreme individualism as you find it in the US is arguably as bad as the opposite extreme. You hold up some random statistics that are supposed to show that the American way of life is superior to the alternatives—as if Americans should be proud of how they handled the Covid pandemic! How many millions of American individualists refuse to be vaccinated because they think they know better than medical experts about medicine, even though these wannabe patriots have gone down a rabbit hole of preposterous conspiracy theories?
And Rolling Stone cites various stats to show how the US is like a Third World country: the US leads the world in incarceration rates, gun violence, overpaying for healthcare and low life expectancy, forcing new parents to work (denying them paid maternal leave), economic inequality, and in having a crumbling infrastructure. Mark Manson points out that compared to the rest of the world, Americans are conceited, xenophobic, paranoid, ignorant, unhealthy, obsessed with status, and stuck with low quality of life for the average American and with mistaking comfort for happiness. Does that portrait sound familiar to you?
But let’s focus on just two drawbacks of individualism. Extreme individualists end up in conflict with each other because they’re hostile to the idea of finding common ground. Take for example American libertarians and evangelicals. To make that coalition work politically in the Republican Party, American conservative Christians have had to deny the obvious socialist essence of Christian morality, as it’s presented in the gospel narratives of Jesus’s life.
Now you say that socialism is a great evil, and you reject religion. So how fragile and cockamamie must be the Reagan coalition? When the truth comes out, secular libertarians and conservative Christians will be at each other’s throats. In the meantime, those forces have united around the banner of Trumpism, hilariously surrendering their individuality out of fealty to a monstrous idol and demagogue. Remind me again what’s so individualistic about Trumpian libertarians.
You say collectivism is dehumanizing, but what are we talking about here? Collectivism or socialism is about finding common cause or believing something’s greater than yourself, so you avoid the vices of egoism. As I’ve suggested, individualistic Americans are prone to those latter vices.
If you’re talking specifically about the harms done to the rich and to innovators in redistributing wealth to support the welfare of the less ambitious, talented, or lucky members of society (out of respect for their humanity, which runs contrary to the conservative’s and libertarian’s self-defeating social Darwinism), we face another problem: the individualistic society that prizes private property, capitalistic competition, and maximizing economic growth is at the forefront of global warming and the destruction of the world’s ecosystems. So remind me again which value system is more dangerous in the long run.
