Thursday, November 06, 2008

INDIVIDUALS

One of the pillars of collectivist thought is the observation that many worhtwhile things cannot be accomplished by one person alone. There are may worthwhile things that require collective effort, from building an automobile or a bridge, to performing life-saving surgery, to exploring space. The complexity of many modern endeavors requires cooperative effort, and this in fact is the reason why people self-aggregate into, corporations, clubs, guilds, political parties, and any number of groups whose members share a common purpose.

The collectivist impulse is to organize effort through the forces of government. At first glance, this seems a perfectly logical and efficient practice, since the government can tax, and promulgate rules and laws that facilitate the task at hand. But a moment's contemplation reveals that the only thing that government can uniquely contribute to any effort is coersion.

There is a reason why the liberties enjoyed by the United States political system have resulted in so many types of entrepreneurial accomplishments and progress in science, technology and quality of life. That reason is that inspiration and ingenuity are the fruits of individual volition and talent rather than the coerced products of collective effort. Thirty mediocre composers could not collectively write the works of Mozart, nor could fifty career bureaucrats produce the resolve of Churchill or Ghandi.

Collective effort is necessary to some enterprises and a hindrance to others. It is the liberty to aggregate together to accomplish the former when necessary, and the liberty to pursue one's own genius when necessary to the latter. The power of the state to coerce is a poor substitute for the creative power of a free people.

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