A comment to the post Health Care Collectivists reminded me that the rhetoric of collectivism permeates today’s political discourse and that as long as a collectivist solution isn’t too “extreme”, some believe that individual rights can be maintained. While this certainly seems like a reasonable approach, there are a number of problems with this philosophy besides the ever present danger of a populace giving heed to the seductive call of social “gradualists.”1

History of Collectivism

Tiananmen Square The Encyclopedia Britannica traces the modern history of collectivist ideas to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Du contrat social – or “social contract” – of 1762.2 In theory, this was an actual or hypothetical compact, or agreement, between those who were ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each.

In the 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a prominent advocate of these ideals and believed that the state “has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State.”3 In fact, as a statist Hegel believed that submission to the state is the “highest embodiment of social morality.”

Drawing upon Rousseau and Hegel’s work, Karl Marx advocated a collectivist approach to organizing society. Moyra Grant wrote:

Collectivism is sometimes contrasted with both individualism and with statism to mean the advocacy of voluntary, cooperative and non-coercive groups and associations pursuing a common purpose; but is more commonly understood to include statist theories and systems such as fascism and Stalinism. . . .4

More broadly, however, collectivism embraces any philosophy which perceives any group, society or state as more important than the individual.5

Criticisms and Warnings of Collectivist Ideals

Adidas - Impossible is Nothing As one of collectivism’s most prominent critics, Nobel prize winner Friedrich A. von Hayek commented in 1944:

The various kinds of collectivism, communism, fascism, etc., differ among themselves in the nature of the goal toward which they want to direct the efforts of society. But they all differ from liberalism and individualism in wanting to organize the whole of society and all its resources for this unitary end and in refusing to recognize autonomous spheres in which the ends of the individuals are supreme. In short, they are totalitarian.6

Over sixty years ago, Henry D. Moyle warned:

When we cease to be a God-fearing people we fall easy prey to the false philosophy of evil-designing men and nations. This was true in the days of Israel, as a study of the Holy Bible reveals. It is true today as history now unfolds itself. For this reason we are discarding, even in this great nation of freedom-loving people, a God-given constitution of freedom, inspired for free men that they might worship according to the dictates of their own conscience, for the doctrines of collectivism produced to enslave mankind and rob them of all freedom and make them puppets of dictators rather than children of our Heavenly Father, living in freedom, at liberty to exercise their God-given free agency.

No doubt some of you have been attracted by the promises of some such false philosophies, hoping to get something for nothing. Never will this be the case. Beware lest you part with your birthright for a mess of pottage. Such a course presents a one-way street and marks out a path to pursue from which there is no return.7

Summary

A growing tide of political collectivist ideals often lead to:

  • Loss of individual rights to an ever growing and powerful state.
  • A degradation of moral agency.
  • An overall reduction in the standard of living.8
  • Malnutrition and death due to the inherent inability of “planned” economies to meet market demand.9
  • Social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict.10
  • Totalitarianism.

While it may be difficult to conceive of a society any more where individual rights are held inviolate in the midst of a politically charged atmosphere of collectivism, one thing is certain. Collectivist ideals – if not checked – eventually lead to a type of society where Gadianton Robbers thrive.

Sources:

  1. See Proposition 8, Mormons, and the New Statesman.
  2. “Collectivism”. Encyclopedia Britannica. 6 August 2009.
  3. See Hegelian Dialectic.
  4. This post uses this more common definition of collectivism and presupposes familiarity with political collectivism.
  5. Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: Nelson Thornes, 2003. 19-20. Google Book Search. Retrieved 6 August 2009.
  6. von Hayek, Friedrich A. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944. 56-57.
  7. Newquist, Jerreld L., ed. “The Welfare State – Creeping Socialism”. Prophets, Principles, and National Survival. Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1964. 349-350. 24 July 2009. Originally published in The Church News, 19 June 1949.
  8. Benson, Ezra Taft. “Secret Combinations.” Conference Report. October 1961. 75.
  9. Werth, Nicolas. “The Great Famine”. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard, 1999. 159-168.
  10. von Mises, Ludwig. “The Fallacy of Collectivism.” 5 May 2007. Ludwig von Mises Institute. 6 August 2009.

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