|
COLLECTIVISM
vs.
INDIVIDUALISM
.
| COLLECTIVISM
"COLLECTIVISM: Collectivism is defined as the theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the individual
the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern. In theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups,
associations, or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals." -- Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher
"collectivism ... treats society as if it were a super-organism existing over and above its individual members, and which
takes the collective in some form (e.g., tribe, race, or state) to be the primary unit of reality and standard of value."
-- Prof. Fred D. Miller HERE
"Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group -- whether to a race, class or state does not matter.
Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the
common good'." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"Collectivism is a form of anthropomorphism. It attempts to see a group of individuals as having a single identity similar
to a person. ... Collectivism demands that the group be more important than the individual. It requires the individual to
sacrifice himself for the alleged good of the group." -- Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands HERE
"Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others." -- Ayn Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand
"Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value." -- Mark Da Cunha
HERE
"G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-83) ... both viewed political phenomena as the inevitable result of historical
processes, and regarded collectives as of greater reality and value than their individual members." -- Prof. Fred D. Miller
HERE
"collectivist ethical principle: man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Whether
those 'others' are a dictator's gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe,
etc., is irrelevant -- the point is that man in principle must be sacrificed to others." -- Mark Da Cunha HERE
"Collectivism is the political theory that states that the will of the people is omnipotent, an individual must obey; that
society as a whole, not the individual, is the unit of moral value. ... Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics." -- Dr. Andrew Bernstein, HERE
"The antipode of individualism is collectivism, which subordinates the individual to the group -- be it the 'community,'
the tribe, the race, the proletariat, etc. A person's moral worth is judged by how much he sacrifices himself to the group.
[Under collectivism] the more emergencies (and victims) the better, because they provide more opportunity for 'virtue'." -- Glenn Woiceshyn
"Collectivism is the doctrine that the social collective -- called society, the people, the state, etc. -- has rights, needs, or moral authority above and apart from the individuals who comprise it.
We hear this idea continually championed in such familiar platitudes as 'the needs of the people take precedence over the
rights of the individual,' 'production for people, not profits,' and 'the common good.'
"Collectivism
often sounds humane because it stresses the importance of human needs. In reality, it is little more than a rationalization
for sacrificing you and me to the desires of others." -- Jarret B. Wollstein in The Causes of Aggression, HERE
"Don't forget that pure democracy is a form of collectivism -- it readily sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes.
Since it involves no constitutional bill of rights, or at least, no working and effective one, the majority-of-the-moment
can and does vote away the rights of the minority-of-the-moment, even of a single individual. This has been called 'mob
rule,' the 'tyranny of the majority' and many other pejorative names. It is one of the greatest threats to liberty,
the reason why America's founding fathers wrote so much so disparagingly of pure democracy." -- Bert Rand
"A social system is a code of laws which men observe in order to live together. Such a code must have
a basic principle, a starting point, or it cannot be devised. The starting point is the question: Is the power of society
limited or unlimited?
"Individualism answers: The power of society is limited by the inalienable, individual
rights of man. Society may make only such laws as do not violate these rights.
"Collectivism answers:
The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes."
-- Ayn Rand, Textbook of Americanism, HERE
"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or
political significance to a man's genetic lineage -- the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are
produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by
his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. [...] When
men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority
and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group -- the inevitable consequence
was that men began to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror.
The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify -- particularly for people of limited intelligence -- the least
demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is: race. [...] It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism,
the 'humanitarian' advocates of a 'benevolent' absolute state ... led to the rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism
in the 20th century." -- Ayn Rand in "Racism", HERE
"The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective -- the race
-- is the source of his identity and value. ... The notion of 'diversity' entails exactly the same premises as racism
-- that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage."
-- Peter Schwartz in "The Racism of ''Diversity'," HERE
"Primitive communism ... once existed among all peoples and still survives in many uncivilized countries. All production
in this stage of society is under the direction of chiefs or councils of elders. No individual responsibility exists."
-- George Winder, HERE
Statism
"Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The
only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical
corollary of collectivism." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"STATISM is that particular form of collectivism in which individuals are forced to be subservient to government (as distinguished, if possible, from a religious or cult
leader, roving invader or local gangster). Anyone in government who wants to extend his power, or anyone else (who has
political influence) with agendas to advance, monopolies to secure, axes to grind or revenge to take -- can make claims that
certain governmental actions would be in the national, state, society or even family interest and must 'therefore' take precedence over any individual interests whatsoever. With this 'justification'
the people in government can proceed to enforce such claims, often enthusiastically, sometimes brutally, but always with impunity."
-- Rick Gaber
"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When
practiced by a government, it is called statism ..." -- Nathaniel Branden, HERE
Relevant Comments
"Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. ... Collectivism is not the 'New Order of Tomorrow.' It
is the order of a very dark yesterday." -- Ayn Rand
"Altruism demands that an individual serve others, but doesn’t stipulate whether those others should be one’s family, or
the homeless, or society as a whole. Collectivism states that, in politics, society comes first and the individual must obey.
Collectivism is the application of the altruist ethics to politics." -- Dr. Andrew Bernstein, HERE [emphasis added - ed.]
"... So here we get the two essentials of Nazism: the rejection of reason and the mind in favor of the worship of brute
emotion, and the elevation of the collective over the individual. What, then, distinguishes the ideas of the modern intellectuals from the philosophy of the Nazis? The addition of an altruist twist. The Nazis were certainly pro-self-sacrifice, because
they advocated (and enforced) the sacrifice of the individual self to the collective aggrandizement of the race. But the modern
intellectuals declare that they are even more altruistic because they want to sacrifice our own race to other races." -- Robert
Tracinski, HERE
"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that
the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some
(any) alleged 'good' can justify it -- there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"Among other grand achievements, F. A. Hayek had a remarkable career pointing out the flaws in collectivism.
One of his keenest insights was that, paradoxically, any collectivist system necessarily depends on one individual (or small
group) to make key social and economic decisions. In contrast, a system based on individualism takes advantage of the aggregate,
or 'collective,' information of the whole society; through his actions each participant contributes his own particular, if
incomplete, knowledge—information that could never be tapped by the individual at the head of a collectivist state."
-- Sheldon Richman, HERE
"People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not
have one-tenth of the knowledge of all of the average persons put together. In this situation, for the intelligentsia to impose
their notions on ordinary people is essentially to impose ignorance on knowledge." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell, HERE
"It is collectivism that is the unrealistic expression of utopian belief systems. In its worst form -- the
state -- collectivism is the institutionalized exertion of violence to compel living beings to behave contrary to their natural
self-interest inclinations. So strong are the motivations for individual preferences that the state must resort to attacks
upon the very nature of life to satisfy the ambitions of those who see others as nothing more than resources to be exploited
for such ends." -- Butler Shaffer, HERE
"A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him"-- Alexis de
Tocqueville
"Socialism collapsed because it is a policy of unrestrained intervention. It tries to fix what is 'wrong' with the
spontaneous, self-organizing phenomenon called capitalism. But, of course, a natural process cannot be 'fixed.' ...
Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon." -- Michael Rothschild in BIONOMICS: Economy as Ecosystem
"Not understanding the process of a spontaneously-ordered economy goes hand-in-hand with not understanding the creation of resources and wealth." -- Julian Simon
"The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention
of civilization." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, June 8, 1990
"The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America
-- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality. People
are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class)
in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government." -- George Will, HERE
"I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass
a law and do something about it." -- Milton Friedman
"People have often been willing to give up personal identity and join into a collective. Historically, that propensity
has usually been very bad news. Collectives tend to be mean, to designate official enemies, to be violent, and to discourage
creative, rigorous thought. Fascists, communists, religious cults, criminal 'families' — there has been no end to the
varieties of human collectives, but it seems to me that these examples have quite a lot in common. I wonder if some aspect
of human nature evolved in the context of competing packs. We might be genetically wired to be vulnerable to the lure of the
mob." -- Jaron Lanier, HERE
"Collectivism is the real-world manifestation of the subjective, emotion-based feral animal origins of humanity, like some
recurring echo emanating from the primitive reptile brain that physically exists in all of us. It is the antithesis
of rational objectivity, something that no amount of fancy verbiage from Marx or Chomsky or Himmler or Plato or Rousseau can
disguise in their respective paeans to force and unity over intellect and evolution. Collectivism is a fancy word for
tribalism. It is a hold over, an atavistic throw back ..." -- Perry de Havilland, HERE
"Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group -- whether to a race,
class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for
the sake of what is called `the common good.´ Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing
`the common good.´ Napoleon `served the common good´ of France. Hitler [was] `serving the common good´ of Germany.
Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by `altruists´ who
justify themselves by -- the common good." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"But I want you to LOVE ME!!!!" -- Franz-Josef, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, as he screamed at a subject while having
him horsewhipped.
"Statism – the subordination of the individual to the state -- leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression."
-- Andrew Bernstein, HERE
"The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious
student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power." -- Albert Jay Nock
"... statism systematically violates the rights of individuals and is, therefore, immoral. Because it suppresses
the mind and violates men’s rights, it thereby causes abysmal poverty and is utterly impractical." -- Andrew Bernstein, HERE
"All politicians are collectivists. They don't care about privacy." -- Professor Ian Angell, quoted on ZDNet
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power
lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government
contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number
of the Constituents." -- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
"A pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will,
in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party...
Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have,
in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in thier deaths." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 10
"Isn't it somewhat remarkable that we can go back a a few hundred years and find no shortage of quotations from our founding
fathers warning us against the dangers of democracy, yet today teachers and politicians use the word as if it were an offering
of gold." -- Neal Boortz
"'Democracy' does not mean freedom." -- Mark Da Cunha
"The issue here is liberty, and democracy is far from a synonym for that." -- Perry de Havilland
"Democracy is four wolves and a sheep voting on dinner." -- Robert A. Heinlein
"Democracy must be something more than two wolves
and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." -- James Bovard
"Lynch mobs are democracies." -- Neal Boortz
"Our founding fathers detested the idea of a democracy and labored long to prevent America becoming one. Once again
-- the word 'democracy' does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, or the
constitution of any of the fifty states. Not once. Furthermore, take a look at State of the Union speeches. You
won’t find the 'D' word uttered once until the Wilson years." -- Neal Boortz, Nov. 7, 2002
"Democracy in itself does not define or guarantee a free society. History has told many stories of democratic societies
that have degenerated into corruption, plunder, and tyranny." -- Richard M. Ebeling
"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."--
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
"I can’t think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility
than for the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were
we supposed to be." -- Neal Boortz
"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government..." -- United States Constitution,
Article IV, Section 4
"The people in the MSM (mainstream media) don't think of themselves as liberal. They're just in favor of collectivism
and against individualism in general -- without using many labels (or much thought) of any kind.
They go out of their way only to mention a minority group if they can. Groupism is what they believe in." -- Rick Gaber | | |
-
| INDIVIDUALISM
"Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political one. As an ethical-psychological concept,
individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty
of his or her mind; thus, it is intimately connected with the concept of autonomy. As an ethical-political concept, individualism
upholds the supremacy of individual rights ..." -- Nathaniel Branden HERE
"INDIVIDUALISM: The term 'individualism' has a great variety of meanings in social and political philosophy. There are
at least three types that can be distinguished: (1) ontological individualism, (2) methodological individualism, and (3) moral
or political individualism. Ontological individualism is the doctrine that social reality consists, ultimately, only of persons
who choose and act. Collectives, such as a social class, state, or a group, cannot act so they are not considered to have
a reality independent of the actions of persons. Methodological individualists hold that the only genuinely scientific propositions
in social science are those that can be reduced to the actions, dispositions, and decisions of individuals. Political or moral
individualism is the theory that individuals should be left, as far as possible, to determine their own futures in economic
and moral matters. Key thinkers include Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick, John Locke, and
Herbert Spencer." -- Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher HERE
"The foundation of individualism lies in one's moral right to pursue one's own happiness. This
pursuit requires a large amount of independence, initiative, and self-responsibility.
"But true
individualism entails cooperating with others through trade, which facilitates the pursuit of each party's happiness, and
which is carried out not just on the level of goods but on the level of knowledge and friendship. Trade is essential for life;
it provides one with many of the goods and values one needs. Creating an environment where trade flourishes is of great importance
and great interest for the individualist.
"Politically, true individualism means recognizing
that one has a right to his own life and happiness. But it also means uniting with other citizens to preserve and defend the
institutions that protect that right." -- Shawn E. Klein HERE
"Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his
own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any
form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition
of individual rights -- and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members." -- Ayn Rand HERE
"Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law." -- Ayn Rand
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote;
a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities
from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." -- Ayn Rand
Relevant Comments
"This right to life, this right to liberty, and this right to pursue one’s happiness is unabashedly individualistic,
without in the slightest denying at the same time our thoroughly social nature. It’s only that our social
relations, while vital to us all, must be chosen - that is what makes the cruciial difference." -- Prof.
Tibor R. Machan, HERE
"...individualism is not antithetical to community. Rather, it can involve free association and a belief
in an over-arching harmony of interests. In a free socety, individuals join with others because of love and mutual benefit,
not because they are programmed or coerced." -- Prof. Clifford Thies
"One byproduct of individualism is benevolence -- a general attitude of good will towards one's neighbors
and fellow human beings. Benevolence is impossible in a society where people violate each others' rights." -- Glenn Woiceshyn
"Paradoxical as it may seem, men and women who are free to pursue individualism and material wealth
turn out to be the most compassionate of all." -- Financial Times, London, Nov 22, 2001
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness." -- Jefferson et al, The Declaration of Independence
"The fact that most people think that ... pursuing one's own self-interest equates to behaving brutally or irrationally,
is, as Ms. Rand noted, a 'psychological confession' on their part. In fact
it is against one's own long-term self-interest
to behave irrationally or trample others. Such actions are the exact opposite of selfish -- they're self-destructive."
-- Wayne Dunn
(Emphasis added. Criminals and other sociopaths do not think in terms of how their actions affect the society
around them and set bad examples for others. Nor do they empathize with others, certainly not their victims. And
they certainly don't feel the pride of honest achievement or of helping to build civilization.)
"Individualism is a concept which the advocates of most political systems try desperately to avoid. They'd prefer
that political contests, debates and symposia were limited to answering loaded questions such as, 'WHICH type of powerful
government should we have?', 'WHICH type of dictatorship do you tend to prefer?", 'WHAT KINDS of intrusiveness
should government engage in?' and, 'WHICH type of control freaks are best suited to run your life for you?'
... They often get upset, even hysterical, if you point out that socialism, fascism, communism and mixed-economy welfare-states have a lot in common.1 They carry on and on as if non-essentials
such as style(!) or WHAT anybody sacrifices individual rights in the name of (the master race, the proletariat,
the society, the common good, the majority, the country, the fatherland, the motherland the brother-in-law-land, the revered
leader or savior or god or whatever) is a big freakin' deal, especially as only in their particular fantasies do they
imagine everyone, the enforcers and even their victims, acting forever polite and cooperative in the sacrifice-extracting
rituals (as have many fledgling and would-be dictators, including the incredibly bloody Pol Pot at first)." -- Rick Gaber
"Freedom is an intellectual achievement which requires disavowal of collectivism and embrace of individualism." --
Onkar Ghate
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Williamm O. Douglas
"They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone--the most prehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." -- U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Louis Brandeis (Olmstead v. U.S.)
"The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights." -- Erwin N. Griswold
"You have to ask yourself, 'Who owns me? Do I own myself or am I just another piece of government property?' " --
Neal Boortz
"The crucial distinction between systems...was no longer ideological. The main political difference was between those
who did, and those who did not, believe that the citizen could -- or should -- be the property of the state." -- Adam Michnik
in Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
"In principle, there are only two fundamental political viewpoints. That is, two contradictory ends of the
'political spectrum.' Those two principles are freedom and slavery." -- Mark Da Cunha
"There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers."
-- Ayn Rand
"A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him." -- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
"Collective judgment of new ideas is so often wrong that it is arguable that progress depends on individuals being free
to back their own judgment despite collective disapproval." -- W.A. Lewis
"There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal.'' -- George Santayana, The Life of Reason
"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest
breaks up the foundations of society." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816
"There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob." --
Ayn Rand
"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws
which bind each of them separately." -- Thomas Jefferson
"We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions
of men, cannot do." -- Auberon Herbert
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
-- John Locke
"The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When
practiced by a government, it is called statism ..." -- Nathaniel Branden HERE
"Over himself, over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign" -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859), "Introductory"
"The case for a free society rests on individualism. ... Every form of totalitarianism has sought control over the minds
of individuals, and has understood that it must first undermine the individual’s confidence in the validity of his own
faculties. Remember O’Brien’s speech to Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984 ... " -- David Kelley HERE
"Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of
men."-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
"It is embarrassing to have to remind people of this in the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence,
Thomas Jefferson singled out three natural rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The last phrase, appearing
instead of 'property,' has prompted much discussion. I cannot say what Jefferson was thinking. But here's a plausible
theory: Property is already implicit in liberty. If you are free, you can use your belongings as you see fit. But by specifying
the pursuit of happiness Jefferson might have been pointing out that the blessing of liberty need not be justified through
selfless service to others. One's life and happiness on earth are justification enough." -- Sheldon Richman
"The right to the pursuit of happiness IS the right to be selfish. You'd think Americans, of all people, would take pride in that, and in precisely what that really means." --
Rick Gaber
"The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating
intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of
mankind." -- Ayn Rand
"The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private,
personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness
cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men. ... These rights are the unconditional, personal,
private, individual possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction.
Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims."
-- Ayn Rand
"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men
who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes." -- Ayn Rand
"The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests
and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others." -- Ayn Rand
"America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states
that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave
to the needs of others." -- Alex Epstein
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders
of minorities." -- Ayn Rand
"Contrary to what leftists want us to believe, individualism does not mean looting others to satisfy
one's desires. Nor does it mean unconcern for others. ...Individualism, not collectivism or altruism, is the root of
benevolence and good will among men." -- Glenn Woiceshyn, HERE
"State-mandated compassion produces, not love for ones fellow man, but hatred and resentment. The breakdown of
'basic civility' and the rise of the welfare state occur concurrently." -- Lizard
"The Nazis are well remembered for murdering well over 11 million people in the implementation of their slogan, 'The
public good before the private good,' the Chinese Communists for murdering 62 million people in the implementation of
theirs, 'Serve the people,' and the Soviet Communists for murdering more than 60 million people in the implementation
of Karl Marx's slogan, 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.' Anyone who defends
any of these, or any variation of them, on the grounds of their 'good intentions' is an immoral (NOT 'amoral') enabler of
the ACTUAL (not just the proverbial) road to hell." -- Rick Gaber
"If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the
individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any)
alleged 'good' can justify it -- there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations." -- Ayn Rand, The Roots of War
"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." -- Soviet
Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, addressing the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, 2-25-56
"The unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will
of an individual; and that the higher interests involved in the life of the whole must here set the limits and lay down
the duties of the interests of the individual." -- Adolph Hitler
"We need to stop worrying about the rights of the individual and start worrying about what is best
for society." -- Hillary Clinton
"...we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow
men." -- Adolf Hitler, 10-7-33
"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, June 28,, 2004.
"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."
-- Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, National Socialist German Workers' ("Nazi") Party
"What, actually, is the difference between communism and fascism? Both are forms of statism,
authoritarianism. The only difference between Stalin’s communism and Mussolini’s fascism is an insignificant
detail in organizational structure." -- Leonard E. Read
"Racism, as a set of beliefs based upon the arbitrary assertion that the content of one's mind and one's character are
inherited and unchangeable, is something I can demonstrate to be complete and total bullspit just from my own personal experience.
You see, I disagree with more than half the teachings of my own parents, and probably 90% of my other ancesters. And
I'm a cheerful, friendly optimist, while the vast majority of them have been cynical, suspicious pessimists. The only
people who can consistently claim racism could be valid are those people who agree with and act like their parents and ancestors
100% of the time, have accepted everything they believe on blind faith, and have done absolutely no thinking, let alone corroborating,
of their own. Who in their right minds would ever want to take seriously whatever such a pathetic creature has to say
anyway?" -- Rick Gaber
"I have often lamented that with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the forces of liberalism did not spend nearly enough
time ruthlessly driving intellectual stakes through the hearts of all those who supported the 'Evil Empire' or preached appeasement
or claimed that the Soviet system was 'just another way of living' rather than a mass murderous tyranny." -- Perry de Havilland
"Most modern intellectuals congratulate themselves for having achieved the allegedly momentus insight that capitalism and altruism are ultimately incompatible.
Yet they're still too damned ignorant to realize, or too damned stubborn to acknowledge, that altruism is definitely NOT the
only moral code available to mankind; it is, in fact, the bloodiest and most regressive one of all. Such stunted thinking
on the part of the intelligentsia has resulted in their committing the intellectual atrocity of rejecting the capitalism and
freedom instead of the altruism and coercion." -- Rick Gaber
"The three values which men held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism.
Mysticism -- as a cultural power -- died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism -- as a political ideal -- died
in World War II. As to altruism -- it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western
civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it. ..." -- Ayn Rand
"[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification
of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism,
of all dictatorships." -- Ayn Rand
"Republicans don't know how to defend morally an individual's right to achieve wealth and to keep it, and that is
why they fail. ... It's part and parcel with their ambivalence over the individualist heritage of the nation. ... One of the
things that people have to understand is that the American Revolution was truly an epic revolution in the way individuals
were perceived in relation to the rest of the society. Throughout history individuals had always been cogs in some machine;
they'd always been something to be sacrified for the king, the tribe, the gang, the chieftain, the society around them, the
race, whatever, and the real revolution, in America especially, was a moral revolution. It was a moral revolution
in that ... suddenly, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the individual, his life, his
well-being, his property, his happiness became central to our values, and that is what really
made America unique. People came here from all over the world to try to escape the kind of oppression they had and experienced
in the past. They came here for freedom; they came here for self-expression and self-realization, and America offered them
that kind of a place." -- Robert Bidinotto
"Collectivism, as an intellectual power and a moral ideal, is dead. But freedom and individualism, and their political
expression, capitalism, have not yet been discovered." -- Ayn Rand
"It is not as late as you think. It is merely early -- in the age of the rebirth of individualism." -- Ayn Rand | |
| ............ |
More comments on democracy from the Founders:
" . . . in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy."
-- Edmund Randolph at the 1787 Constitutional Convention
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy
yet that did not commit suicide." -- John Adams
"Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos." -- Chief Justice
John Marshall
"I'm not alone in seeing democracy as a variant of tyranny. ... In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, 'Measures
are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force
of an interested and overbearing majority.' That's another way of saying that one of the primary dangers of majority
rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical.
Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and could actually be opposites." -- Dr. Walter E. Williams
Quotations selected from THE GAP BETWEEN RICH & POOR:
"No amount of IMF, World Bank and other handout interventions can bring prosperity to repressive nations."
-- Walter E. Williams, here
"Scratch the surface of an endemic problem -- famine, illness, poverty -- and you invariably find a politician
at the source."-- Simon Carr, in his review of The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
"The 'progressive' Left, even
while wailing about international poverty, has long decried the Westernization of the 'developing world', the polite term
for societies kept poor by socialist governments." -- from
The Free Market Means Civilizationby Lew Rockwell, President of the Ludwig von
Mises Institute, originally published in Spintechmag.com,12-22-2000.
"Many Western journalists, in contrast to revolutionaries, do not treat ideas seriously, and therefore fail to recognize
the power of ideas in action. They don't realize that chaos and brutality must accompany a determined effort to implement
... thorough-going socialism." -- Prof. Morgan O. Reynolds
"Anything other than free enterprise always means a society of compulsion and lower living standards, and any form of socialism
strictly enforced means dictatorship and the total state. That this statement is still widely disputed only illustrates
the degree to which malignant fantasy can capture the imagination of intellectuals." -- Lew Rockwell
"I consider socialism an obscene ideology, doomed to end in either total self destruction or total dictatorship." -- Pamela Hemelrijk, Leiden, Holland, April 3, 2004.04.16
"All socialism involves slavery." -- Herbert Spencer
"The fallacies and contradictions in the economic theories of socialism were exposed and refuted time
and time again, in the nineteenth century as well as today. This did not and does not stop anyone; it is not an issue
of economics, but of morality. The intellectuals and the so-called idealists were determined to make socialism work. How? By that magic means
of all irrationalists: somehow." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities
are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent
embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has
to be or can ever be practiced." -- Ayn Rand, HERE
"Fortunately, political freedom and economic progress are natural partners. Despite capitalism's lingering reputation
as the source of all the world's evils, the fact remains that every single democracy is a capitalist country. Half a
century of economic experimentation proved beyond doubt that tyranny cannot yield prosperity. ... Socialism collapsed because
it is a policy of unrestrained intervention. It tries to fix what is 'wrong' with the spontaneous, self-organizing phenomenon
called capitalism. But, of course, a natural process cannot be 'fixed.' ... Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon." -- Michael Rothschild in BIONOMICS: Economy as Ecosystem
"Capitalism is not an "ism."
It is closer to being the opposite of an "ism," because it is simply the freedom of ordinary people to make whatever economic
transactions they can mutually agree to." -- Dr.
Thomas Sowell
"The market is not an invention
of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, June 8, 1990
"How a conflict-ridden,
grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong
Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing." -- P.J. O'Rourke in Eat the Rich
"Another current catch-phrase is the complaint that the nations of the world are divided into 'haves' and the 'have-nots.'
Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." -- Ayn Rand
"The tenth commandment sends a message to collectivists, to people who believe wealth is best obtained by
redistribution. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell." -- P.J. O'Rourke, here
Quotation selected from Who is the final authority in ethics?
"Morality has been the monopoly of mystics, i.e., of subjectivists, for centuries -- a monopoly reinforced and reaffirmed
by the neo-mystics of modern philosophy. The clash between the two dominant schools of ethics, the mystical and the
social, is only a clash between personal subjectivism and social subjectivism: one substitutes the supernatural for the objective,
the other substitutes the collective for the objective. Both are savagely united against the introduction of objectivity
into the realm of ethics. ... Observe that most modern collectivists -- the alleged advocates of human brotherhood,
benevolence and cooperation -- are committed to subjectivism in the humanities. Yet reason -- and therefore, objectivity,
is the only common bond among men, the only means of communication, the only universal frame-of-reference and criterion of
justice." -- Ayn Rand, Who is the final authority in ethics? here
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"The foundation of collectivism is simple: There should be no important economic differences among people. No one should
be too rich. No one should be too poor. We should 'close the wealth gap'." -- P.J. O'Rourke, HERE
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1When confronted, they often resort to making
unfounded preposterous claims, such as "there is no such thing as individualism," that "all individualism evolves into collectivism
anyway," that "all individualists are closet collectivists" (or, "all live-and-let-livers are really closet control freaks"),
that individualism cannot be taken seriously," etc., etc., usually with an air of indignant self-righteousness, and sometimes
vengeful hostility. |
............ |
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor.
Now
we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich." -- William F. Buckley, Jr. |
"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally
irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance." --
Murray N. Rothbard
"Certain kinds of economic controls tend to paralyze the driving forces of a free society." -- F.A.
Hayek
"Sociotropic voters with biased economic beliefs are more likely to produce severe political failures than are selfish
voters with rational expectations." -- Bryan Caplan |
| "Marxism sounds vaguely groovy and compassionate when you live in the Hollywood Hills, as opposed to under any of the
regimes responsible for between 85 million and 100 million deaths in the last century." -- Bridget Johnson |
| "Liberals hold us individually
responsible for nothing but collectively responsible for everything.” -- a reader of Thomas Sowell's, here |
| "Psychologist Nathaniel Branden speaks of a benevolent sense of life possible to those with rational, productive
values, vividly contrasted with the coercive parasitic group-culture of mystics and altruists we live in, where people all
around you seem a burdensome annoyance, a threat to your survival. Having been told from childhood that life is a zero-sum
game in which you owe everything to others, at some level you worry all the time that someday the bastards will collect.
And collect they do, every April 15th. Why do you think they call it collectivism?" -- L. Neil Smith |
| "I'm no defender of nationalized anything. It's immoral, because it's stealing." -- Jim Noble |
| "Racism is a variant of collectivism, the doctrine that the individual is valueless [except] as an appendage of a group.
One's 'race' is an evaluation based on nonessential attributes ... such as the dimensions of facial/physical features
and the wavelengths of light reflected by pigmentation." -- Gregory Gerig |
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