Collectivism vs. Individualism
- Definitions -
"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
HERE
"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 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
"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
"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
"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.
... " -- 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
"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
"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
"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
"Statism – the subordination of the individual to the state --
leads inevitably to the most hideous oppression." -- Andrew Bernstein,
HERE
"... 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
"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
"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
"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
"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
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 crucial
difference." -- Prof. Tibor R. Machan,
HERE
"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
"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?", 'HOW MUCH intrusive government should we have?'
and, 'WHICH type of control freaks are best suited to run your
life?' ... They often get upset, even hysterical, if you point out,
for example, 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 William 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
"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"
"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 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
"But I want you to LOVE ME!!!!" -- Franz-Josef, Emperor of Austria-Hungary,
as he screamed at a subject while having him horsewhipped.
"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
"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
"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
"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
FreedomKeys.com/collectivism.htm
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 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
"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?
"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
When
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.
"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
"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
All the above copied from FreedomKeys.com
