Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2013-10-31 Oct 31, 2013I 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 FriedmanAmong 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 RichmanThe 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 Oct 30, 2013It 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 D. ShafferCollectivism 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. WollsteinWhatever crushes individuality is despotism, whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.~ John Stuart Mill Oct 29, 2013The 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 NockThe 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.~ Christopher HitchensPeople 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 Oct 28, 2013The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.~ John Kenneth GalbraithIf falsehood like truth had only one face, we would be in better shape. For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field.~ Michel de MontaigneThe most fluent talkers or the most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.~ William Hazlitt Oct 25, 2013Don'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 RandThe 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 WillA 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 their deaths.~ James Madison Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print