Economic individualism is an impossible myth

[JimmyJazz]

I've struck this theme in a few of my posts, but now I've decided to consolidate my view into one handy post for your (OIer's) refuting pleasure:


Economic individualism is an impossible myth in a post-Industrial society. A division of labor is crucial in such a society (more crucial than in any previous type of society, although it has always been an important part of all societies, since alongside other rationales every society has an economic rationale for existing, and a DoV is pretty much it). And anywhere you have a division of labor, you have economic collectivism, by definition.The deeper the division of labor the more economically collectivist the society is. In a post-Industrial society, it's pretty damn deep. Hence post-Industrial societies are marked by an extreme form of economic collectivism.


There are, therefore, only three basic options for organizing the economy in a post-Industrial society:

Hierarchical collectivism
Non-hierarchical collectivism
Primitivism (turning back the clock on industrialization)


And a more detailed version, with pathways from here to there:

Individual inaction via individualized "democracy"-->Maintenance of hierarchical collectivism (capitalism)
Collective action-->Non-hierarchical collectivism (socialism/communism)
Nuclear holocaust/worldwide infertility virus-->Primitivism


I'll clarify what I mean by "individualized 'democracy'". A major function of elections in liberal democracies is to individualize the whole political process. Originally, the focus on elections as the major form of political participation may have been merely a reflection of the individualistic liberal (classic liberal, e.g. John Locke) outlook, but at this point in history I'm convinced that they actually perpetuate that outlook. Individual freedoms like the secret vote, or those in the bill of rights, etc., can all be used by revolutionary socialists to our advantage; but our victory will ultimately never lie in the correct utilization of our individual rights. It will lie, if it happens at all, in collective action. That's probably the single biggest difference between socialists and capitalists. Individualism leads to winners and losers, oppressors and oppressed. Only collective action can correct this problem. Thus socialists--realistic ones--emphasize collective action, and not individualistic forms of participation such as walking into a booth and voting for the guy who shares "your values".

So, while a major problem with Objectivist/libertarian philosophy is it's conflation of the economic axis with the political axis (thinking that if you have collectivism on one you must have collectivism on both, or individualism on one then you must have individualism on both), Marxism does see the two as intertwined to some degree. A highly individualized political process impedes the possibility of collective action, as well as--importantly--impeding the collective action mindset, aka collective consciousness, thereby impeding the only thing which a Marxist sees as capable of leading us from capitalism (hierarchical collectivism) to socialism/communism (non-hierarchical collectivism).

***note: the fact that I am very clear that only collective action can lead to economic collectivism is what makes this distinctly Marxist and separates it/me from other economically collectivist philosophies like anarchism.

[pusher robot]

What you're saying doesn't make sense. You are defining modern economies, in which individuals are engaged in a high degree of cooperation, and defining this as "collective" - then saying that since libertarians oppose "collectives" they must therefore oppose cooperation, and saying this is a "major problem."

However, as typically used in this context, "collective"-ness has very little to do with the degree of cooperation or inter-dependence but rather about where the locus of control is located. A true collective locates control with the collective - that is, with some kind of over-arching authority. In this scenario, individual judgments are irrelevant if they contradict the judgment of the collective. The opposite scenario is the individualist economy, in which the locus of control is individuals - the collective's wishes are relevant inasumuch as they are factors in the individuals' decision-making, but ultimately the individual has the power to decide among the options that reality permits him - though clearly most individuals decide to cooperate with others for mutual benefit to form what you call "economic collectivism." It's not really, though, because any of the participants could choose to stop cooperating, and there's really nothing the "collective" could do about it, which means it's still individualist.

[trivas7]

Except that the capitalist mode of production isn't organized, business enterprises and governments are. And it's socialism that wishes to conflate the economic and the political, not capitalism. I have no problem with a communist enterprise that follows the PARECON model, OTOH government should be laissez-faire.

Collective action is the choices/actions of individuals multiplied by their number.