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On Individualism, Collectivism, and Community
America’s leading Ugandan-American philosopher said last year that
We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.
And I say “that’s a lie”, with all the sincerity of George Bailey.
Let’s line up the guns.
Just a few days ago, I saw a piece titled:
The Collective is the Enemy of the Community.
Why? Because “socialism’s coercive collectivism destroys the voluntary relationships that sustain” community.
And that aligns with the message in Björn Merker’s book Perishing Promise, that the voluntary organizations that weaved through Victorian England created a vibrant community, while the “partisans of overthrow”, the fans of collectivism, were devoted not just to overthrowing the political status quo but abolishing the community of ordinary people in England.
Today I got to read a piece about Cuba. There are only “a few hours a day of electricity” each day, and the “the average worker pulls down $16 per month”. After 65 years of socialist rule, the country is so flat broke that it ain’t funny. The current Cuban GDP is around $100 billion using the official exchange rate of 24 Cuban pesos per dollar. Which would be about $9,000 per capita. But if the exchange rate is really 700 pesos per dollar, the GDP would be about $300 per capita. Let’s see: a wage of $16 per month rounds up to $192 per year.
I wonder which is closer to reality.
And yet the Cuban military rules Cuba with an iron fist. Like the IRGC in Iran. Strictly speaking, they don’t have socialism, because the Cuban military owns GAESA, and GAESA “owns the ports, the hotels, the gas stations, and most of the other large commercial entities in Cuba”. You wonder what it would take to get regime change in those two benighted countries.
That makes me wonder: what made the Soviet Union break up in 1991? Because as long as the government has all the guns and doesn’t hesitate to use them…
Anyway, whatever the philosophers say, I wouldn’t say that there is any warmth in the collectivism in Cuba. It would be more accurate to speak of the frigidity of rugged totalitarianism. And “The Collective is the Enemy of the Community”: see above.
On the contrary, if you want to talk about “warmth”, how about the spark of creativity in the Greek notion of “thumos”? Greek scholar Marco Rubio put it this way.
The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it – the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride – is the heart of great civilization.
Get it? Thumos is fire: “passion, strength, courage, pride”. And fire is warm. Hot even.
Let’s reset the temperature graph from the misleading ideas of our Ugandan-American friends. But first, let’s remind ourselves what community looks like as described by Björn Merker in Perishing Promise. It means a universe of voluntary associations, including:
self-help and mutual-aid societies… charity schools, ragged schools (for destitute children and orphans), Sunday schools, societies to promote piety and virtue, others for the relief of aged widows, penitent prostitutes, the dear, dumb, blind, and otherwise incapacitated, mothers meetings, soup kitchens, maternity charities, crèches… working men’s associations, slate clubs, medical clubs, lending libraries, natural history societies… holiday funds, penny banks, saving banks, visiting societies, temperance societies, pension societies, and more.
The point is that, if everyone in society is doing their bit in some voluntary association, what you get is “the warmth of community”.
So let’s understand the world this way:
Thumos, the fire of individual passion and strength and creativity, is HOT.
Community, the universe of people volunteering together, is WARM.
Collectivity, the broken world of serfs under government domination, is COLD.
This really is not hard, is it.
| Tue, 13 Oct 2026 22:24:55 GMT |
Running Out of Other Peoples’ Money
I suppose that, on the day before Chancellor Bismarck proposed that Germany should do social programs, all sensible people understood that government couldn’t do anything right.
But anyway, he did, enacting health insurance and pension programs in the late 19th century, in a tactical play against the Social Democrats. And here we are, 150 years later, and as the daughter of a grocer once said:
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.
There’s no mystery about this. It is coded in Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s definition of politics being about friends and enemies. What do you do to your enemies? You tax them. What do you do to your friends? You gift them.
And the trouble about gifting your supporters is that they strongly object if you ever stop the money coming to them. Indeed they might even vote against you, despite all the favors you did for them over the years. Experts agree that the shortest measurable time difference is the time between getting a government benefit and deciding you deserve it.
On top of that, when you create pension and healthcare programs you have to do a lot of fearless forecasting. Niall Ferguson notes that that includes the number of children that people beget.
Unfortunately, because of the science of measurable time intervals discussed above, it is impossible to cut government programs if, despite all the agreements among the experts, it turns out that people don’t have 2.5 children but only 1.5.
In other words, government has no business in running pension and healthcare programs — or anything where prediction is involved — because it doesn’t have a clue what the future may bring. And then when things turn South the government doesn’t cut spending, it increases taxes.
Here in the United States and in Europe, governments are running up against the limit of spending, as their national debts are all cresting about 100 percent GDP. Here in the US we are up to 130 percent GDP. The French are at 119 percent GDP. The Brits are just under 100 percent GDP.
And what are the governments doing? Nothing. In our state and local governments they are increasing taxes. Because? Because that’s what the unionized government employees demand. And don’t you dare cut my Social Security or Medicare. Fraud uncovered by Nick Shirley? That’s OK.
But I tell you what I am disappointed about. I am disappointed in our philosophers and economists and social scientists and experts. How come they haven’t all combined in a wise and serious movement to advise the governments and the peoples of the Earth to change their ways? What’s the point of philosophers and experts if they don’t advise us to do the right thing?
Actually, the grocer’s daughter was wrong. It’s not just socialist governments that run out of other peoples’ money. It’s all governments.
And everyone is in on the government lark. The upper class, the educated class, has jobs in government and grants from government. The middle class has its Social Security and its Medicare and Fannie/Freddie mortgages. The lower class has its vast acreage of various benefits and access to fraud. And nobody is willing to face a reduction in benefits.
So nothing will happen until after we run out of other peoples’ money. And I have a feeling that it won’t be pretty.
| Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:23:46 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
At the end of the Middle Ages courtiers enjoyed LARPing battles in their tournaments. In our age activists enjoy LARPing revolution in their mostly peaceful protests.
More government means less affordability.
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: Brief Takes on Major Topics
