The case for Individualism
Individualism is the belief or principle that the individual person is more important than the group, and that people should have the freedom to make their own choices and pursue their own goals.
It emphasizes personal independence, thinking and acting for oneself. It promotes self-reliance, where your fortune depends on your own abilities. It values individual rights and freedoms, such as freedom of speech and freedom of choice.
It stresses personal responsibility - that people are accountable for their actions. A student choosing a career based on their own passion rather than family expectations reflects individualism. And in politics, individualism supports personal liberty and limited interference in private life.
This is opposed to collectivism, which places greater importance on the needs and goals of the group or community, and which places people in groups to be dealt with, rather than as unique individuals each with their own values and goals.
Individualism can appear in different areas. In philosophy its focus is on personal identity and autonomy. In politics its emphasis is on individual rights. In culture its focus is on individual talent and attainment. Some societies, such as the United States, are often described as more individualistic than others.
Innovation, wealth creation, and human flourishing have tended to come from individuals pursuing their own projects and ideas, not from committees or central planners. It is the entrepreneur, the eccentric inventor, the dissenter, the person who ignores received wisdom and tries something new, who is the engine of progress.
Individualism is not mere selfishness; this a caricature. The individual who is free to succeed must also bear the consequences of failure. If we embrace collectivist sentimentality, and the tendency to romanticise group identity, class solidarity, or national purpose, we do so only at the expense of personal autonomy.
Individualism and free markets are deeply connected. Markets are simply the aggregated expression of millions of individual choices. No one designed them, no one controls them, and that is precisely their virtue. They respect the individual's judgement about what is valuable, rather than substituting the bureaucrat's guess. They contain more information than a central planner can because the information is dispersed among millions.
Individualism is celebrated in culture and lifestyle, the right to live differently, to think the heterodox, and to reject social conformity. This extends beyond economics to personal freedom, and runs contrary to both left-wing identity politics and right-wing social conservatism when they tried to corral individuals into approved categories.
The case for individualism is not an atomistic doctrine, but is the philosophical foundation of a free, dynamic, and humane society founded upon real people pursuing their real objectives.
Madsen Pirie