How are socialism and collectivism/anti-individualism/common good related?

[UnknownPerson]

If socialism implies a public and co-operative ownership of the means of production, doesn't it mean that such a society can be highly individualistic if the distribution is based on the equal pay per hour of work, with people being paid for doing work and not sacrificing anything for the good of others or greater goals? Can't it still leave people who are unable to work without any medical healthcare?

Where does the relation between socialism and collectivism/anti-individualism/common good come from?

[Weezer]

If socialism implies a public and co-operative ownership of the means of production, doesn't it mean that such a society can be highly individualistic if the distribution is based on the equal pay per hour of work, with people being paid for doing work and not sacrificing anything for the good of others or greater goals? Can't it still leave people who are unable to work without any medical healthcare?

Where does the relation between socialism and collectivism/anti-individualism/common good come from?

Because people associate capitalism with individualism, both economic and social, and since socialism is radically different from capitalism, people see socialism as not only a threat to capitalism, but to individualism and creativity as well.

[Rafiq]

Almost no beings throughout the animal kingdom are individualistic. I don't see why it's important, or even productive.

[UnknownPerson]

Almost no beings throughout the animal kingdom are individualistic. I don't see why it's important, or even productive.

Agreed. It's seen as important by some because stupid libertarians, conservatives and liberals think that it's fun to waste wast amounts of labor and resources, destroy our planet's ecosystems and over-consume.

[Tim Cornelis]

Socialism is in the self-interest of the workers (under socialism that is everybody of course), in that sense socialism is inherently individualistic.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Where does the relation between socialism and collectivism/anti-individualism/common good come from?

I think you need to have socialized means of production and an end to capitalist alienation for individualism to have any meaning whatsoever.

Once the means of production on a social level are democratized, then there is no inherent need for people to only have wages if they sell their labor - or, put more directly, a worker's ability to survive is not dependent on them selling their labor.

In semi-egalitarian societies like tribal bands that do not rely on trade with modern societies for their subsistence, there tends to be a real situation where the band produces "from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs". Aside from extreme or emergency situations, all else being equal, many of these tribes produced for the collective band while the producers still had relative autonomy in their production. European traders in the new world remarked that it was difficult to make arrangements with some native American societies because the tribe "chiefs" held no real corrosive power. Because everyone contributed to the common production but were not alienated from that production, women for example, held veto power over many communal decisions even when they did not hold formal positions of power. In the Iroquois, for example, men were in charge of voting on and conducting war, but not women who normally did not fight in the wars (so autonomy for different areas of work) but women could put a stop to a fight they did not support because they controlled the production of food and other supplies that would be needed for a war party.

Of course these were smaller societies that lived without much surplus but I think the same principle of having control over your own labor efforts is the same. Control over production while coordinating that with a collective goal means workers are not alienated from production and therefore have more individual say and impact in collective matters.

For workers, capitalism means conformity and loss of individuality (this was actually the common arguement against capitalism from the industrial era until WWII... individual artisans and craftspeople were replaced by mass-production). To win back induvidual worth and autonomy, workers have to fight collectively and run society on a collective and democratic basis.

I don't know where the idea that socialism is anti-individualist comes from but my main guesses would be 1) Russia and China 2) Right-wing nuts.

Just like capitalism demands "shared sacrifice" (where worker's share all the sacrifice) Russia and China demanded that the individual needs of workers come after the needs of the state - i.e. of the needs of these states to boost production in order to modernize/industrialize Russia or China. So induvidual concerns were frowned apon or called "counter-revolutionary" while conformity was emphasized. Anti-communist propaganda grabbed a hold of this and the images of people in Mao suits and whatnot as part of their ideological campaigns. Of course what's some conservative in 1962 America warning of the end of individuality while trumpeting wholesome American conformity and suburban life?!

This specific formulation of collectivism vs. individualism, however, I'm pretty sure comes mainly from Ayn Rand and like-minded right-wing loons. They like this set-up because it allows them to conflate socialism, Keynesianism, fascism, and even sometimes any democracy (if you argue them into a corner or they are being honest about it) into one bad "collectivism" category while painting the observable flaws of capitalism (inequality) as a virtue: "individualism".

[Taverner]

Almost no beings throughout the animal kingdom are individualistic. I don't see why it's important, or even productive.

I fail to see why it's an either/or question. Even in today's Capitalistic environment, one person's individual labors cannot build anything by themselves.

It takes a reflection of both individual strengths and collective strength to achieve anything.

[ckaihatsu]

Where does the relation between socialism and collectivism/anti-individualism/common good come from?




[Society] can be highly individualistic if the distribution is based on the equal pay per hour of work


This point is actually an entirely separate topic of its own -- there was a good discussion not too long ago that dealt with the question of (variable-rate) labor-hour compensation with all means of production being collectivized:


The doctor argument against communism

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1967486&postcount=12





If socialism implies a public and co-operative ownership of the means of production, doesn't it mean that [...] people [would be] paid for doing work and not sacrificing anything for the good of others or greater goals? Can't it still leave people who are unable to work without any medical healthcare?


The most important difference with a socialized means of production would be that -- *outside* of whatever formalized system of labor-hour compensation might be enacted -- *no one* could *privately* lay claim to the available *surplus* from society's mass production.

So while there would no doubt be comprehensive administration over outstanding humane needs and available liberated labor that could be applied to fulfill such need, we could -- for the sake of argument -- envision a "surplus" of productive "excess" produced that escapes comprehensive administrative planning.

Normally, under capitalism's violence-enforced laws of private property, if an orchard happened to produce an excess of apples, that excess of unsold production would just be considered as part of the private orchard, and the orchard would probably just write it off as a financial loss.

With *socialized* production, however, a surplus of apples (or whatever), *not* required by those with first claim to it -- the liberated workers who served to bring them forth -- would be a surplus available to *anyone* -- anyone who should happen to want to consume apples (or whatever). The surplus could *not* be privatized, for the sake of ownership itself, because there would be no markets anymore, and the very method of market-based exchanges would be too *bothersome* a practice to bring back from history for it to be of any usefulness to a society that simply produced and distributed, en masse.

In this way *consumption* could be highly individualistic, but *production* would be very *socialized* since no one could make any *private* claims as to its functioning. (This is distinct from capitalism in which *costs* are socialized while benefits are *privatized*.)


[8] communist economy diagram

http://postimage.org/image/1bvfo0ohw/