What follows is a reply left on a comment page for an article The Individualist Socialist. The article itself is a masturbatory piece about the fact that the group is just as important as the individual, all the while, the author demonstrates how many "important" books he's read and how many other people's ideas he can regurgitate all the while wrapping them within a cloak of his own personal whimsy and wit. His answer is that there are no answers; just muddling along with a smile on your lips and ignoring the fact that the group is ultimately tyrannical.
MY REPLY
Groups are arbitrary and nebulous while the individual is a constant. The individual either is or isn't, does or doesn't, will or won't. A group, on the other hand, could be comprised of folks who agree or disagree on any given course of action, and if those in the minority disagree with an action but the majority undertake that action anyway while the minority abstains, then is the minority effectively no longer part of the group and therefore not responsible for the actions of the other group members?
Groups still consist of individuals making individual decisions, and while those in the group may benefit from an individual who either supplies her labor or ideas, whether voluntarily or by force, the act of laboring or developing ideas is still a uniquely individual act, because no matter how it wills, a group cannot fire the synapses of any of its members' minds or make the connection between the brain of a member and her arms or legs for the purpose of labor.
Most importantly, an individualist cannot be a socialist because of aims: one points west while the other points east; the individualist aims to do what is best for the individual (something she can know for herself) while the socialist aims to do what he believes to be best for the group.
Of course, the question then arises, can any individual know what is best for a whole group comprised of dynamic and unique people equally alike and unalike to each other in a million different factors? If the action taken does not give universal benefit or causes harm to some in the group, is it moral?
In a group of five where four benefit and one is harmed, the argument is that the four must not suffer, but if the group had twenty and sixteen benefited while those same four were harmed, their cries would be dismissed for the good of the sixteen others.
More questions come to mind:
Can a group really be a group of equals when those who disagree with the group's actions are coerced into compliance? Subsequently, isn't socialism at odds with peace if it does not allow for voluntary cooperation and voluntary non-participation and even disassociation? Is it perhaps that the group owns the lives of the member parts? But where does this ownership originate? In nature? Taken to its extreme is does the ownership begin at birth?
If only two individuals existed on the planet and neither had knowledge of the other, would they still own one another because they were part of the same group, regardless of the number of miles that separated them?
Just things to ponder.
--M.A. Hargett
