Many people, even among anti-collectivists, still don’t get the true difference between individualism and collectivism. It’s not that individualism is better: it’s that individualism is real, whereas collectivism is pure absurdity.

Arrow’s theorem merely formalized the obvious: if John wants to go to the movies, James to the theater and Jane to the opera, then what do “John, James, and Jane” want? And even if John and James were to agree on going to the movies (or, e.g., raping Jane), what does this same “society-group-people-collective-nation”, composed of “John, James, and Jane” want?

The majority rule, commonly accepted as the practical application of “democracy” (power to the “people”, that is, a given arbitrary percentage of an arbitrarily defined group according to some arbitrary electoral system), is in no way sacred, legitimate, official, or logical. It is only the expression of “might makes right”, a sort of sophisticated shortcut to avoid having to solve the question by violence (where one is to assume that the greatest number would prevail). In no way should it be seen as the expression of some “collective will”, which is therefore not a valid concept: the 50.00% is in no way whatsoever more “official” than 20%, 40%, or 80.43%.

Those who are more equal than others

The impossibility of a unique, legitimate collective decision therefore dooms all collectivism from the outset. This can be easily observed in practice: what are the regimes in which some particular individuals have the most power? With the most profuse personality cult, the almost mystical celebration of a few selfish individuals by millions of people? The so-called collectivist regimes.

Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Castro, Khomeini, Mao, Kim Jong-um, Ceaușescu, etc. — should they be considered “collectivists”? This makes no sense. If you want to understand the world, you have to stick to strict methodological individualism¹. Much more than philosophy, it is the individual interests (whether correctly identified or not) that explain the world.

Thus, those such as Ayn Rand or Isabel Paterson² who contrast individualism and collectivism, err inasmuch as they see this as a valid dichotomy, the choice between two consistent visions of the world, chosen ex ante and then followed to the letter by their respective supporters.

In reality, this is not an ideological or philosophical struggle: the main issue in the world is not the “choice” (for whom?) between two consistent philosophies that would oppose each other.

Sacrifices and beneficiaries thereof

Take the case of fascism:

Per il liberalismo (come per la democrazia e il socialismo), l’individuo è fine, la società è mezzo; nè è concepibile che l’individuo, che è fine, possa mai assumere il valore di mezzo. Per il fascismo la società è fine e l’individuo è mezzo, e tutta la vita della società consiste nell’assumere l’individuo come strumento dei fini sociali.

[For liberalism (as for democracy and for socialism), the individual is an end, the society a means; nor is it conceivable for liberalism that the individual, which is an end, could ever serve as a means. For fascism, on the other hand, society is an end and the individual a means, and the whole life of society consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends.]

— Alfredo Rocco, Minister of Justice (1925-1932), “La Dottrina Politica del Fascismo”, [The Political Doctrine of Fascism], 1925.

Of course, Rocco is mistaken about democracy, and even more so about socialism: this is what the (national) socialist Goebbels had to say at about the same time:

Sozialist sein: das heißt, das Ich dem Du unterordnen, die Persönlichkeit der Gesamtheit zum Opfer bringen. Sozialismus ist im tiefsten Sinne Dienst.

[To be a socialist means to subordinate the I to the You, to sacrifice individuality for the benefit of the whole. Socialism is in the deepest sense service.]

— Goebbels, Michael: ein Deutsches Schicksal in Tagebuchblattern, 1926.

In both cases therefore, the important point is the sacrifice of the individual for the benefit of the collective. But who is this “collective” if not “a group of individuals”? Sacrifice of individuals, then, but to what extent, and for whose benefit, exactly? For indeed, if all the individuals of a society³ were to be sacrificed, who and what would remain?

Society and individuals

As Thatcher used to say, “There is no such thing as society” — or rather, there is not any single one society⁴. “Society” is an abstraction, and in practice always means other people. Sacrificing an individual in the name and for the benefit of society therefore means sacrificing them for the benefit or by the decision of other individuals. The only question then is who is sacrificed by whom: who takes the decisions in the name of the “collective”, and is thus exempt from being sacrificed himself?

What does collectivism hence consist in? In mere propaganda for useful idiots, irrational and inconsistent, intended only to justify an existing ruler (or a future ruler’s coup) — to make others accept the author of the propaganda as the “legitimate” owner of the power to decide in the name of the collective: not to rebel against his selfish decisions of sacrificing them for his own benefit.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that collectivist regimes, typically “egalitarian dictatorships,” are always based on hypocrisy: since they have no semantically valid philosophy, since their entire structure is based on permanent contradictions (doublethink), the arguments of those who dominate them are but ad hoc pretexts, rhetorical tools which only a few useful idiots take seriously (and certainly not themselves).

Collectivism is thus an utter lie. It is not opposed to inequalities, it is not opposed to profits, it is not opposed to “exploitation”⁵ and it is certainly not opposed to selfishness. Nor is it even opposed to individualism: its one and only enemy is Universal, Natural Law — it promotes the unlimited power for certain individuals, arbitrariness, nihilism, as opposed to the recognition of a unique set of rules, applying identically to each and every individual person.

Collectivism is nothing more than a political strategy practiced by some individuals in order to increase their power over other individuals, out of nothing but immoral egoism and arrogance, in order to be the ones who do the exploiting, who do the profiting, who do the ruling over other individuals. Nothing more.

Useful idiots of the void

Does it then make sense to distinguish those collectivists who are sincere (or claim to be?), the “deluded idealists”, and those who are not? Not really.

The former are the useful idiots of the latter (history is full of examples of evil’s helpers over whose demise nobody shall shed tears), and should we really forgive the useful idiots who dedicate their lives to fighting for a goal, without taking five minutes to ask themselves what they actually have a right to do?

But the latter, whose useful idiots are they?

For thirty years the West’s Communists have been the useful idiots of the Soviet apparatchiks, who themselves were Stalin’s useful idiots — useful idiots of useless psychopaths. But Stalin himself, what did he accomplish? The ungraspable progress of capitalism and transhumanism, of which socialism deprives those it murders, exploits and impoverishes — he didn’t get to enjoy it, either. By merely seeking a sadistic and fragile power over a few starving wretches⁶, the only unquestionable and ultimate winner can be but destruction, death, nothingness⁷.

If stupid collectivists are therefore the useful idiots of psychopathic collectivists, at the end of the chain all are nothing but that: useful idiots of the void.