The Fallacy of Individualism

There is a common misconception out there that Libertarianism, or free-marketism, is about glorifying the individual above the collective. This is a false reading of the free-market position in our view and it leads to all sorts of strange fallacies.

People come to think that the absence of government would necessarily lead to an each-man-for-himself chaos. People come to think that free-marketeers cannot organise anything with more than one person without being true to their ‘individualistic’ doctrine. It is argued that families are the ultimate collective and therefore that families make the case better than anything for a socialistic society. It is even argued that companies are by their very nature socialist, as people pull together and shareholders pool resources for the greater good of everyone. Any kind of collective efforts not tied to the profit incentive is seen as a refutation of the free-market, libertarian mind set.

These arguments may be appealing at face value, but alas they misunderstand the very nature of freedom, individual choice, and forced socialist dictates.

The key issue here is that libertarian philosophy of individual freedom is about individual choice, not individualism per se. There is a difference. I can CHOOSE to be individualistic, separating myself from others and only thinking about myself, looking after myself, working for myself, and being by myself. I can also CHOOSE to be social, joining myself to others who are willing to join with me, thinking about myself and others, looking after myself and others, working for myself and others, and being with others. Individuals freely choosing to pool resources, join forces, and cooperate are doing so perfectly within the realms of individual freedom.

Sports teams are made up of individuals but the focus is very much on the collective. Are sports teams socialist? No, sports teams are cases of freely determined collective cooperation, similar to the kinds that abound in every area of life. The great fallacy out there is that free markets are about cold hard blood-thirsty competition. But as we have shown in previous posts, there are more cases of cooperation in our lives than competition. Competitive interactions tend to be the exception, sporadic but necessary points in time. Cooperation on the other hand is the human default setting and governs far more of our action than does competition.

We cooperate on the roads, in the shops, with suppliers, with customers, with friends, with churches, with policemen, with spouses, with children, with parents, on the web, on chat forums, at conferences, in our neighbourhoods and everywhere else. We don’t need any authority to force us to cooperate, we just do it because as humans we know there are huge benefits from mutual cooperation.

This is profoundly different to FORCED cooperation, of the sort that tends to be dictated by the state or by some coercive organisation. Like forcing people to join a labour strike against their free will, or forcing people to pay for other people’s healthcare, pension, sewage upgrade, or education.

Families are not a case for socialism, but are instead perfect examples of individual cooperation. People choose families because their incentives align with the family unit. Everyone in the family derives benefits from everyone else. Some people choose to leave families and go it alone. They are generally less well off than people living in happy families, but that is their choice.

Companies too are not socialistic but rather a corporate expression of cooperative freedom. Bosses enter into mutually beneficial contracts with employees, and all pull in the same direction.

The difference, as always, is not between the individual and the social, but between individual freedom of choice and coercion. Free people are fully capable of sponsoring hospitals for the poor, building schools in rural areas, and all other manner of philanthropic endeavour. They don’t need their social cooperation written into law, and indeed, when it is written into law, everyone’s freedom is destroyed.

It’s time to get away from this inane caricature of Libertarianism and free-marketism as being wholly an individualistic pursuit that negates any possibility for cooperation and social pooling of resources. That is not the free-market message. The issues is freedom of choice and mutual cooperation that may arise as a result of that choice between two or more free people, which is indeed a greatly predominant feature of our real world.

Free market theories that ignore this possibility are deficient, and socialists who say that companies and families and sports teams prove the merits of the socialist state forget that by and large, by choice, we are all naturally social and cooperative ALREADY, and that if their theory is so grand it should not require force to achieve it.