I was talking recently with a graduate student from India about his impressions of America. Among his observations, he offered the opinion that one of the biggest problems with America is its preoccupation with individualism. I was baffled at this comment. A man who came to the country that has the lowest barrier to individual achievement and was studying to improve his individual skills in pursuit of a career in which he personally desires to excel thinks that one of the biggest problems with the country is its individualism. We were not able to clear enough of the misunderstanding for me to have a satisfactory grasp of what exactly he means by “individualism,” but the conversation prompted me to seek out a better understanding of the term and why it is polarizing. For example, how is individualism both the bedrock upon which the American Dream is built and the culprit behind the accusations of American greed and selfishness? Is it a name to give a positive spin to the most misanthropic tendencies of man or, as Hayek describes, is it “one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundation laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans”?
What I learned is that there are two kinds of individualism, or more accurately two different philosophies that both go by the name “individualism.” One is wholesome and beneficial. The other is corrosive and anti-social. Although they both go by the same name, only one is the philosophy that is consistent with a healthy society, Christianity, and western civilization. Unfortunately, the homonymous philosophies have become confused and conflated over the years to the extent that a person who believes in the good qualities of true individualism often thinks that they must also believe in the bad qualities of false individualism. It is important to affirm the value of true individualism while freeing people of the burden of the counterproductive aspects.
The most concise and insightful treatise on individualism that I have discovered to date is a lecture by F. A. Hayek called “Individualism: True and False,” which he gave at University College, Dublin December 17, 1945. Hayek goes into detail laying out the characteristics of the two opposing philosophies while contrasting them with each other. He begins by sharing his own discovery when researching the topic and finding the variety of aspects tied to the name “individualism” in the literature,
When in the preparation of this paper I examined some of the standard descriptions of “individualism,” I almost began to regret that I had ever connected the ideals in which I believe with a term which has been so abused and misunderstood.
He contemplates calling his belief system by another name, yet he retains the term “individualism” because “the term has the distinction that the word ‘socialism’ was deliberately coined to express its opposition to individualism.” This already begins to draw some boundary lines around the definition of true individualism: it is the opposite of socialism. But there is more work to do, because those whose definition of individualism coincides with the bad meaning might be repulsed toward socialism.
The two types of individualism could not be more different from each other. Hayek says,
all sorts of conceptions and assumptions completely alien to true individualism have come to be regarded as essential parts of its doctrine.
For example, true individualism champions cooperation and mutual benefit while false individualism exalts one isolated individual and his solitary achievement. The former believes that people cooperating with each other tend to produce structures and practices that are greater than any single person could devise, while the latter believes that nothing is greater than that which a single human mind conceives and executes. One is founded on humility while pride is at the heart of the other. As the contrasts mount, it becomes clear that there are truly two different philosophies and that they do not belong together.
The primary criticism of individualism is that it promotes selfishness, but this accusation is based upon a misunderstanding. Selfish individualism gets lumped together with capitalism and American society as the hallmark and primary deficiency of western society. True individualism upon which western society was actually built does not promote selfishness but self-directed pursuits. It believes that society benefits most when each person pursues what they individually care about. It does not rely upon greed and watching out for “number one.” Rather, it is a philosophy that believes that people will best pursue what they care most about personally. People should not be directed about how to spend their time and resources by some governing authority. Instead, each person should be allowed to pursue their own passions. The small church plant of which I was a member held this philosophy in its early stages of growth. It was more out of necessity than a deeply held philosophy, but it worked excellently. The church did not have the bandwidth to do every form of ministry that a church could do. If a member brought up an idea that was on her heart, the church would encourage that person to champion her idea and become the primary stakeholder while the church supported her. This is a picture of true individualism. It is based upon the primary source of motivation and not the primary beneficiary of the actions. It believes that people should pursue their passions and not that they should pursue their own fame, power, and wealth.
Rather than being founded in a sinful motivation, true individualism is deeply biblical. In the Bible, salvation is an individual action. No matter how much you care, you cannot control what happens in someone’s heart between himself and God. God interacts with people individually concerning the development of their relationship with Him. When the Israelites were constructing the tabernacle according to God’s specifications through Moses, Moses asked the people to contribute to the project. He did not demand that each person or family or clan pay a certain amount in order to obtain the resources. Instead,
All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.
The key phrase is, “whose heart moved them.” The primary mover is each person’s heart and not a command from a governing authority. In the early days of the church, people sold land and contributed the proceeds to the church out of their own freewill. Leadership did not mandate a contribution or coerce people to give. They left the individuals free to do what they desired to do. 2 Corinthians 9:7 says it plainly, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” God often works collectively through groups by stirring each individual to action, their coordinated effort unknown to each until a latter point of culmination. The political organization of the people of Israel had strong characteristics of individualism early on before they instituted a monarchy. It was apparently God’s desire for the nation that people pursue Him and obey the law individually because God makes it clear to Samuel that monarchy was not His first plan for political organization. In response to Israel’s demand for a king, God says that they have rejected him as their king and gives them a warning about the oppression they will suffer under an earthly king’s rule. God stirs people to action in ways that we cannot conceive or understand, and society functions best when people are free to pursue the stirrings in their hearts rather than receive orders about what they should do and care about.
The reason why individuals should make their own decisions about what to pursue is based upon another foundation of true individualism, which is limited knowledge. Socialism and other collectivist ideologies tend to believe that the elite have more knowledge than the common man and therefore should be allowed to make decisions for others. Society functions best when the “elites” are in charge. True individualism is opposed to socialism because it assumes an attitude of humility about the level of knowledge that even the brightest person can have. While levels of intelligence vary from person to person, the amount of knowledge that one person holds, even for the world’s highest IQ, is insignificant compared to the collective amount of knowledge and information that the rest of society holds. No person knows the history, the nuances, the second and third order factors at play in each community across society. The people living in their own circumstances tend to have the best and most complete information. They will be most able to predict the impacts of a particular edict or policy in their community. The true individualist believes that, as far as possible, decisions should be left to those who are in the best position to make them and who will suffer the most direct consequences for the decision. The compliment to the mantra, “No taxation without representation,” could be, “No decisions without consequences.” Even an extremely competent leader cannot fully anticipate the consequences of a decree. True individualism accepts that limitation of knowledge and refrains from usurping the decision making authority from those who will suffer the consequences.
There is a legitimate counterpoint: that people often make poor decisions and that others can make decisions for them with better outcomes. True individualism does not strictly hold the view that each person knows best for himself what he ought to do. And while it is most fair that the person suffering the consequences should be the person making the decision, the philosophy does not necessarily believe that each person will make the best decision for himself. Hayek describes that the individualist’s position is,
that nobody can know who knows best and that the only way by which we can find out is through a social process in which everybody is allowed to try and see what he can do.
Individualism condescends from the elitism of the collectivist philosophies by believing that the common man’s opinion is of consequence. But it holds a yet deeper position of humility with regard to man and his level of knowledge. He does not believe that the elite knows best nor that the common person knows best, but he believes that no one should claim to know better for someone else and force himself into the decision making role. If a person believes that an expert should make decisions about his life in some area, the true individualist believes that he should be allowed to delegate that authority. I can go to the doctor and allow him to decide what actions I should take to remedy my ailment. I should not, however, be compelled to delegate the authority. If I disagree with the doctor’s diagnosis and prescriptions, I should be allowed to take alternative actions. Self-designated authority for compulsion is a level of hubris which the results of collectivist elites’ actions have never shown to be warranted.
Another fallacy about individualism is that, taken to its logical conclusions, it leads to anarchy. This is a legitimate concern, but it is a characteristic only of false individualism. When the philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke faced the burgeoning philosophy of false individualism, he feared that such a belief system would rapidly dissolve the commonwealth “into the dust and powder of individuality.” Alexis de Tocqueville describes false individualism as an impulse which,
disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows, and to draw apart with his family and friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.
Neither of these champions of true individuality saw this impulse and sentiment as either a positive thing or something belonging to their belief system. True individualism does not advocate for people to withdraw from society but to engage with society in new and unpredictable ways. If people have the freedom to interact and pursue things that they care about, they will forge valuable relationships and develop highly effective bonds that increase their mutual productivity and benefit all of society. Hayek says,
the spontaneous collaboration of free men often creates things which are greater than their individual minds can ever fully comprehend.
True individualism would see all of mankind free to collaborate as they see fit and as a consequence create things more beneficial and effective than any one of them could imagine or devise. Adam Smith is one of the first, and certainly the most prominent, philosopher and economist to articulate the fact that men left free to collaborate in a free market will tend to contribute as much as possible to the good of society. He famously describes the “invisible hand” that tends to guide people to do what benefits society most because it will also benefit them the most. Individualism is not a philosophy of isolation but of the best form of cooperation ever discovered.
Cooperation among people adds to their power of production often in a compound way such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. However, individualism also has another beneficial characteristic in that it spreads the power out as much as possible among the people. False individualism tends to lead to collectivism which centralizes power to achieve its goals. The value and robustness of decentralized power becomes clear only with a right understanding of the nature of mankind. Collectivists believe that humans are good at the core and it naturally follows that the best of these good people should have the most power to form society in the best possible way. Individualists believe, rightly I would argue, that humans are inherently corrupt and that any person is susceptible to temptation and fallibility. Hence, a system designed upon individualism “is a system under which bad men can do least harm.” When power is centralized and a bad man gets control of that power, he is capable of inflicting great harm upon the community. Hayek describes the robustness of the individualistic alternative with the following:
It is a social system which does not depend for its functioning on our finding good men for running it, or on all men becoming better than they now are, but which makes use of men in all their given variety and complexity, sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes intelligent and more often stupid. Their aim was a system under which it should be possible to grant freedom to all, instead of restricting it, as their French contemporaries wished, to “the good and the wise.”
Today, perhaps more than any other time, we can see the problem with allocating freedom to “the good and the wise,” i. e. who will determine who the good and the wise are? Wicked men portray themselves as good and wise quite easily, it seems. The prudence of a philosophy that limits the harm that one person can inflict upon society is evident in light of a clear-eyed understanding of human nature.
A system which disperses power and grants freedom to all might seem to be promoting a weak central government incapable of enforcing laws and leading back toward the system of anarchy previously addressed. But the individualist does not oppose a central government that enforces the laws. He simply opposes a central government doing more than maintaining the environment for individual freedom to flourish. In the words of Hayek,
It does not deny the necessity of coercive power but wishes to limit it – to limit it to those fields where it is indispensable to prevent coercion by others and in order to reduce the total of coercion to a minimum.
And while I’m partial to illustrations involving optimization theory, this description seems particularly lucid. Coercion is inevitable, considering fallen human nature and the tendency of people to oppress each other. The silver screen provides a perfect illustration in the 1941 movie Sergeant York. A Tennessee farmer and marksman is called to serve in World War I, but he does not believe in killing people. After some deep soul searching and prayer, he goes to serve and becomes a war hero. The officer who tried to convince him to serve asks him what changed his mind. Sergeant York replies,
Well I’m as much agin' killin' as ever, sir. But it was this way, Colonel. When I started out, I felt just like you said, but when I hear them machine guns a-goin', and all them fellas are droppin' around me... I figured them guns was killin' hundreds, maybe thousands, and there weren't nothin' anybody could do, but to stop them guns. And that's what I done.
Sergeant York realizes that in order to stop a lot of coercion, he has to do some coercion himself. A government has to have the power of coercion to maintain a civil society that is free to allow its citizens to pursue their passions. Individualism does not deny the government’s role in maintaining a thriving society, but it sharply rebukes government overreach into responsibilities outside its purview. If the government does not coerce criminals, then criminals will coerce you. A system consistent with individualism maintains a minimum of coercion.
Machinery of Individualism
A valuable supplement to the concept and traits of true individualism is a short description of the machinery with which individualism operates in society. Similarly to how true and false individualism have become conflated over the years, the tools and processes of which true individualism makes use in society have become disconnected from the philosophy. To avoid destroying the machinery of individualism in our efforts to uphold it, it is important to identify what those mechanisms and functions are.
One of the necessary attributes for true individualism to thrive is a level of contentment with allowing things to develop naturally. The collectivist and the false individualism philosophies seek to control everything in society as if it were a machine that they were constructing rather than an organic entity like a plant or a tree that naturally grows. The individualist knows that his attitude needs to mirror that of the farmer more than that of the engineer when dealing with society. He provides ingredients and conditions that foster growth but beyond that he must wait for God’s design to activate. If the collectivist were a farmer, he would not be content to let the crops grow because they were not designed by a human. He would meddle deeper and deeper into the process trying to improve it, all the while destroying the plants. Rather than pining with insecurities about the design of society, individualism operates with the reassuring belief that, “if left free, men will often achieve more than individual human reason could design or foresee.”
Another necessary attribute for the proper functioning of true individualism is a widely held agreement among citizens to accept the forces that arise in a free society. Many people who clutch tightly to socialism or collectivist sentiments have experienced some trauma from life. The natural forces of the market adjust to changing circumstances. Often times in the adjustment of those irresistible forces people can get hurt. A man loses his job because the factory in town makes obsolete widgets. A prospective student does not get into the college he desires because there were too many qualified applicants. A woman’s business fails because it opens in the wrong place or at the wrong time. There are two potential responses to this kind of disappointment: accept the loss and try again or rage against the system that allows such things to happen. Individualism requires the former response. The latter response causes the destruction of a free society. It might seem justified at a superficial assessment. You did not do anything to deserve such a loss. It is society’s fault that you got hurt. There must be something wrong with the system. But this fails to acknowledge the true nature of the world. There will be failures along the way in the journey of life. Plans will not always succeed. Good intentions are not always rewarded. This fallen world reverberates with the echo of the pronouncement,
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
A vain rejection of the true nature of the world leads to a destructive quest to remake it in our own image. But we are unqualified architects. The process ends in tyranny and oppression. A great deal of goodness has been lost in the world when people, discontent with the good, seek something better and end up with neither. The pride of false individualism fuels this desire to remake the world because of the sentiment, “of course we can do it better than nature!” Its worship of individual man overestimates his competence. In reality the world is a dilemma. Hayek describes the situation as a choice between obeying society’s forces or obeying a tyrant,
Man in a complex society can have no choice but between adjusting himself to what to him must seem the blind forces of the social process and obeying the orders of a superior. So long as he knows only the hard discipline of the market, he may well think the direction by some other intelligent human brain preferable; but, when he tries it, he soon discovers that the former still leaves him at least some choice, while the latter leaves him none, and that it is better to have a choice between several unpleasant alternatives than being coerced into one.
No system will bring everyone success all the time. Attempting to create such a system by destroying a free society is not idealistic. It is naive and misanthropic. A true individualist responds to life’s failures and setbacks by telling himself and others, “Get back up! Try again! You’ll do it next time.” The socialist response ushers all of society into, as de Tocqueville describes it, “a new form of servitude.”
True individualism is a positive philosophy that desires the highest achievement for all involved because when we each do what we are good at in cooperation with each other, each one’s success benefits the rest. It is a philosophy that is consistent with the created order of the universe and cooperates with the natural forces of growth and development. It is a philosophy that has produced the most prosperity, the most equality, and the least poverty in the places that have given it even a rudimentary implementation. Before we are cavalier about experimenting with society and holding disdain for the natural structures that have arisen in it, before we destroy the current society in a wild goose chase for an illusory ideal socialist society, we should heed Hayek’s warning,
While it may not be difficult to destroy the spontaneous formations which are the indispensable bases of a free civilization, it may be beyond our power deliberately to reconstruct such a civilization once these foundations are destroyed.
What would you say would be some examples throughout the world where a true individualist philosophy was dominant in the society? What would Hayek say the dangers or temptations are for a follower of the true individualist philosophy?