Collectivist Quotes & Sayings

Every collectivist assumes a different source for the collective will, according to his own political, religious and national convictions. — Ludwig Von Mises

It's a matter of whether you see the self as fundamentally in relationship to other selves or not - whether you see the boundary between self and the world as relatively permeable, which makes you "interdependent" (collectivist) in outlook, or relatively impermeable, which makes you "independent" (individualistic). — Gish Jen

We talk about democracy as if it's a safeguard for individual rights ... Instead, it's become our way of intruding on rights, allegedly in the name of that most collectivist of concepts: The Common Good. — Jonathan D. Morris

Even when men approve of the same arrangements, it must be asked whether they approve of them because they exist or because they are desirable in themselves. The common resistance to the collectivist tide should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the belief in integral freedom is based on an essentially forward-looking attitude and not on any nostalgic longing for the past or a romantic admiration for what has been. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

In the anarchist milieu, communism, individualism, collectivism, mutualism and all the intermediate and eclectic programmes are simply the ways considered best for achieving freedom and solidarity in economic life; the ways believed to correspond more closely with justice and freedom for the distribution of the means of production and the products of labour among men. Bakunin was an anarchist, and he was a collectivist, an outspoken enemy of communism because he saw in it the negation of freedom and, therefore, of human dignity. — Errico Malatesta

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

In the modern world, tariffs and similar restrictions on trade have been one source of friction among nations. But a far more troublesome source has been the far-reaching intervention of the state into the economy in such collectivist states as Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain, and especially the communist countries, from Russia and its satellites to China. — Milton Friedman

Children live in the only successful Marxist state ever created: the family. 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need' is the family's practice as well as its theory. Even with today's scattershot patterns of marriage and parenting, a family is collectivist to a more than North Korean degree. — P. J. O'Rourke

From the point of view of fundamental human liberties there is little to choose between communism, socialism, and national socialism. They all are examples of the collectivist or totalitarian state ... — Friedrich Hayek

Every totalitarian Communist considered themselves as a Socialist first and foremost. — A.E. Samaan

If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them ... that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life. — Ayn Rand

I said I didn't think it would be a collectivist state so much as a wilderness in which most people lived hand to mouth, and the rich would live like princes - better than the rich had ever lived, except that their lives would constantly be in danger from the hungry predatory poor. All the technology would serve the rich, but they would need it for their own protection and to assure their continued prosperity. — Paul Theroux

I wonder how many such men in America would know that Communism, the New Deal, Fascism, Nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist Statism, like the trade-names for tooth-pastes which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring. — Albert Jay Nock

Why are the super-rich for socialism? Don't they have the most to lose? I take a look at my bank account and compare it with Nelson Rockefeller's and it seems funny that I'm against socialism and he's out promoting it. Or is it funny? In reality, there is a vast difference between what the promoters define as socialism and what it is in actual practice. The idea that socialism is a share-the-wealth program is strictly a confidence game to get the people to surrender their freedom to an all-powerful collectivist government. While the Insiders tell us we are building a paradise on earth, we are actually constructing a jail for ourselves. — Gary Allen

Collectivism takes on many guises and seldom uses its own real name. Words like 'community' and 'social' soothe us into thinking that collectivist decision-making is somehow higher and nobler than individual or 'selfish' decision-making. But the cold fact is that communities do not make decisions. Individuals who claim to speak for the community impose their decisions on us all. — Doug Bandow

The conservatives have already accepted a large part of the collectivist creed-a creed that has governed policy for so long that many of its institutions have come to be accepted as a matter of course and have become a source of pride to "conservative" parties who created them. Here the believer in freedom cannot but conflict with the conservative and take an essentially radical position, directed against popular prejudices, entrenched positions, and firmly established privileges. Follies and abuses are no better for having long been established principles of folly. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

Menaced by collectivist trends, we must seek revival of our strength in the spiritual foundations which are the bedrock of our republic. Democracy is the outgrowth of the religious conviction of the sacredness of every human life. On the religious side, its highest embodiment is the Bible; on the political side, the Constitution. — Herbert Hoover

Under the influence of collectivist ideologies, many politicians and journalists are ever eager to strike at successful entrepreneurs who earn much more than they do. It is difficult to ascertain their motives; it can be simple envy which consumes many men, or it can be economic ignorance. — Hans F. Sennholz

Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state. — Lawrence Hunter

Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the "selfish" interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realisation of the ends the community pursues. — Friedrich Hayek

A society without firearms is, in the end, a society of dim-witted, collectivist bean farmers. — Vin Suprynowicz

Alwasy remember ... We are engaged in a battle for the continuation of
our capitalist, free-market economic model; our way of life; and our
liberty. The enemy is anticapitalist, believes in big government, embraces
collectivist ideologies, and has, over the past century, infiltrated every
level of our government and most of the banking industry. They don't care about patriotism, although they may sport the red, white, and
blue and the stars and stripes on their bumper stickers. They don't
care about personal responsibility or civic duty. They don't share your
sense of honor. All they care about is power and control over your
money and every aspect of your life. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

It is often said in soccer that a country's particular style of play bears the fingerprints of its social and political nature. Thus the Germans are unfailingly characterized as resourceful and organized, while Brazilians are said to dance with the ball to the free-form, samba rhythms of Carnival. In the husk of cliche lies a kernel of truth. The Communist system of China had produced a collectivist style of women's soccer from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. — Jere Longman

Democratic Socialism devolves into totalitarian Socialism and eventually into full on Communism as people resist statism. — A.E. Samaan

In arguing against free enterprise capitalism, the collectivist always adopts the false assumption of a fixed number of jobs in that system. Conversely, in arguing for collectivism, he always assumes that there will be as many jobs as there are workers. The government will make the jobs. — Isabel Paterson

If a determined, disciplined gang of statists were to make an assault on the crumbling remnants of a mixed economy, boldly and explicitly proclaiming the collectivist tenets which the country had accepted by tacit default - what resistance would they encounter? The dispirited, demoralized, embittered majority would remain lethargically indifferent to any public event. And many would support the gang, at first, moved by a desperate, incoherent frustration, by a need to protest, not knowing fully against what, by a blind desire to strike out somehow at the suffocating hopelessness of the status quo. — Ayn Rand

If adapted to the unique requirements of various regions and peoples of the world, such economic pluralism could have a greater global impact over the next fifty years than the collectivist economics of Marxism and neo-Marxism have had during the half century just past. — Robert Dickson Crane

Capitalism has been called a system of greed - yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of. — Ayn Rand

When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is God's gift to the world. In a collectivist society, the narcissist is God's gift to the collective. — Christopher Lasch

In most collectivist cultures, direct confrontation of another person is considered rude and undesirable. The word no is seldom used, because saying "no" is a confrontation; "you may be right" and "we will think about it" are examples of polite ways of turning down a request. In the same vein, the word yes should not necessarily be inferred as an approval, since it is used to maintain the line of communication: "yes, I heard you" is the meaning it has in Japan. — Geert Hofstede

I 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 Friedman

Communism is what happens when Socialists realize that they want complete control over every aspect of human life. — A.E. Samaan

For 70 years Democrats bitterly denied being "socialists". Bernie Sanders has done the service of exposing them. — A.E. Samaan

The Frankfurt School masterminds for indoctrination into collectivist mindsets. Those men's understanding of human psychology was infallible: Ideas that the general public sees and hears on a repetitive basis will eventually achieve agreement with the ideas put forth or impair the individual judgment necessary to refute them. — Alexandra York

For the majority of Americans, collectivist or nationalized economy is morally wrong and therefore unjust. For them, free enterprise meets their keen sense of justice. — Ndabaningi Sithole

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "emergency". It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And "emergency" became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains. — Herbert Hoover

Some cultures, for instance, are collectivist; others are individualistic. Collectivist cultures, like Japan and other Confucian nations, value social harmony more than any one person's happiness. Individualistic cultures, like the United States, value personal satisfaction more than communal harmony. That's why the Japanese have a well-known expression: "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down." In America, the nail that sticks out gets a promotion or a shot at American Idol. We are a nation of protruding nails. — Eric Weiner

My aim is to be understood by everyone. I reject the 'depth' that people demand nowadays, into which you can never descend without a diving bell crammed with cabbalistic bullshit and intellectual metaphysics. This expressionistic anarchy has got to stop ... A day will come when the artist will no longer be this bohemian, puffed-up anarchist but a healthy man working in clarity within a collectivist society. — George Grosz

You didn't build that' will be Obama's political epitaph: With these remarks, Obama has come out of the closet as a most odious collectivist, who believes religiously that government predation is a condition for production. Or, put simply, that the parasite created the host. — Ilana Mercer

Each of us, Leonard Read said, must become candles of liberty in the darkness of collectivist ideas. The brighter we each shine through our understanding and ability to articulate the meaning of freedom, the more we will be beacons that can attract others. — Richard Ebeling

For instance, Objectivists will often hear a question such as: "What will be done about the poor or the handicapped in a free society?" The altruist-collectivist premise, implicit in that question, is that men are "their brothers' keepers" and that the misfortune of some is a mortgage on others. The questioner is ignoring or evading the basic premises of Objectivist ethics and is attempting to switch the discussion onto his own collectivist base. Observe that he does not ask: "Should anything be done?" but: "What will be done?" - as if the collectivist premise had been tacitly accepted and all that remains is a discussion of the means to implement it. Once, when Barbara Branden was asked by a student: "What will happen to the poor in an Objectivist society?" - she answered: "If you want to help them, you will not be stopped. — Anonymous

Liberalism is a really old British tradition and it has a completely different attitude towards the individual and the relationship between the individual and the state than the collectivist response of Labour, and particularly Old Labour, does. — Nick Clegg

Libertarians are incapable of being a racist, because racism is a collectivist idea. — Ron Paul