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What is your definition of freedom? I've noticed that both individualist and collectivist theories claim that they cherish the ideal of freedom. This may be true in both cases, but only if the difference in the definition of freedom is given due note. There is the freedom from coercion, the freedom from arbitrarily used power, the freedom which allows and recognizes that each individual's wants and needs are paramount within his or her own circle. Then, on the other hand, there is the freedom from necessity, the freeom from circumstances that limit everyone's choices, the freedom from physical want. The first definition is used in capitalist economies. The second is used in socialist economies.
It sounds so good, doesn't it? From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. That's such a humane, such a compassionate sentiment. And individualism sounds, well, downright cruel. What you do affects what happens to you? What an unfair idea.
All collectivist systems are about the deliberate organization of a society's labors in order to achieve a common social goal. But, taking away the mechanism of competition- which it is necessary to do- who decides what common goal the society should be working towards, and by what method that common goal should be achieved? How is any one group of people to decide such things without an agreed scale of values by which to check their decisions against? But there is no great Book of Virtues to delineate which value ranks higher than another (in a competitive society this is provided for in the sense that values can be allowed to fluctuate from individual to individual, with the exception of certain things such as murder, rape, and other behaviors that threaten the net of social cohesion).
So a strict set of morals would have to be issued, which would dictate the behaviors of each individual within that collectivist system. Who are the people who make these all-important decisions? Probably not people picked randomly from the crowd. Experts would be called in, which is all well and good. But it is impossible for these experts to withhold their own preferences when making their decisions, therefore imposing their will on the whole of society.
And what about this staff of experts? It is generally accepted that socialism must be put into action via dictatorial lines. A staff of experts, with the power to direct a country and no rule of law to restrict them- through such circumstances totalitarian regimes are born, and then everyone wonders why socialism failed again. And there's ALWAYS going to be somebody who sees the chance of seizing power, and takes it.
A competitive society is the only one which supports the proliferation of inventions and ideas, the only one in which true economic progress can be made in ALL classes of a society. In the last 300 years, inventions and discoveries such as the bifocal lens, typewriter, reaping machine, electric light bulb, industrial glass fiber, nylon, vulcanized rubber, microchip, laser, aeroplane, microprocessor, pocket calculator, superatom, transistor, etc, have come from America. What is abstract about the impact these inventions and discoveries have made on American society, and the world? Capitalism is an environment that fosters and nurtures the birth of new ideas, which eventually benefit the entire society.
Economic freedom is essential for a society to survive and thrive, and does not lead to the deaths of everyone in the lower classes, contrary to the hysterical reports of the big government bigots. Statistics are so manipulated these days that I trust none at first sight. What people misunderstand is that statistics are fluid and easy to misrepresent- Thomas Sowell is a better lecturer on this subject than I.
"Authors Thomas Stanley and William Danko define the rich as people whose net worth is one million dollars or more. Some of us could quibble about that figure, since net worth counts everything, including the kitchen sink. It also includes the money in your pension fund, the value of your car, the equity in your home and other wealth you are not likely to be able to turn into ready cash." So, how many are rich and how did they get that way? "Even by that modest definition, only about 3.5 percent of American households are rich and 80 percent of these millionaires earned the money themselves. The classic millionaire of Hollywood movie fame- born in a mansion, heir to a fortune, educated at snooty private schools and Ivy League colleges- is the exception, rather than the rule. The authors confess that they themselves started out with these stereotypes about the rich and were repeatedly shocked by what they found. Even a meeting that a big financial organization had them arrange for people who each had $10 million or more in assets turned out to be a fiasco because most of the people who came were not used to the posh setting and fancy food and drink that had been prepared for them."
And it continues: "Only about 3 percent of the American population remains in the bottom 20 percent for as long as 8 years. Add that to the 3.5 percent who are rich, and you end up with less than 7 percent of the American population being either rich or poor- even though great political battles are fought in the name of these small fractions of atypical people, instead of the other 93 percent of us." (Taken from the essay "How 'Rich' is Rich?" in Thomas Sowell's book "Barbarians Inside the Gates".)
