Quotessence
Home / Topics / Collectivism Quotes

Collectivism Quotes

Browse 244 quotes about Collectivism.

Related topics

IndividualIndividualismIfsMenCapitalismDemocracySocialismFormMoralStates

Collectivism Quotes

“In spite of its alluring name, the welfare state stands or falls by compulsion. It is compulsion imposed upon us with the state’s power to punish noncompliance. Once this is clear, it is equally clear that the welfare state is an evil the same as every restriction of freedom.”

FreedomLibertyCapitalismEconomicsCharityLibertarianSocialismCommunismWelfareFascismTaxationCoercionCollectivismFree TradeStatismLaissez FaireAustrian School Of EconomicsFree MarketsAustrian Economics
Author:Wilhelm Röpke
Create image

“Commerce tends toward rewarding inclusion, broadness, and liberality. Tribal loyalties, ethnic and religious bigotries, and irrational prejudices are bad for business. The merchant class has been conventionally distrusted by tribalist leaders -- from the ancient to the modern world -- precisely because merchantcraft tends to break down barriers between groups.”

GovernmentPeaceFreedomLibertyLibertarianTyrannySocialismAnarchyFree MarketCoercionCollectivismFree TradeStatismVoluntaryismLaissez FaireAnarcho CapitalismAustrian School Of Economics
Author:Jeffrey Tucker
Create image

“A libertarian is somebody who believes, of course, in personal liberty. And liberty is a personal thing; it is not collective. You don’t gain liberty because you belong to a group. So we don’t talk about women’s rights or gay rights or anything else. Everybody has an absolute equal right as an individual, and it comes to them naturally.”

PhilosophyGovernmentFreedomLibertyLibertarianAnarchyIndividualismCoercionNatural LawCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismIndividual RightsNatural RightsAncapVoluntaryist
Author:Ron Paul
Create image

“The socialist’s desire to forcefully submerge and drown the individual under the prerogative of the collective is a perverted ethos that has led to incalculable misery. That socialists are somehow numb to the reality of their violent history serves to explain how they personally coped with the carnage when they were confronted with the product of their efforts.”

SocialismCommunismGenocideIndividualismCollectivismIndividual LibertyMass MurderSocialists20th Century HistoryHolomodor
Author:A.E. Samaan
Create image

“In a free society there is always pressure to change it and make people less free. Leaders either move to the right with fascism or move to the left with socialism. In both cases, these movements meet at a dystopian place called collectivism. Ultimately it is about subjugation and taking away individual rights, liberties and freedoms and handing them to an elite few.”

IndividualLeftRightsSocialismFascismRightDystopianFree SocietyCollectivismLiberties
Book:Distilled Thoughts
Create image

“Man is not to direct or to be directed anymore than a tree or a cloud or a stone Man is not to rule or be ruled anymore than a faith or a truth or a love Man is not to doubt or to be doubted anymore than a wave or a seed or a fire There is no problem in living which life hasn't answered to its own need And we cannot direct, rule, or doubt what is beyond our highest ability to understand we can only be humble before it we can only worship ourselves because we are a part of it The eye in the leaf is watching out of our fingers The ear in the stone is listening through our voices The thought of the wave is thinking in our dreams The faith of the seed is building with our deaths”

HumanityBeingCollectivismPantheismSynaesthesia
Book:Collected Poems
Create image

“At the same time, the reader is led to identify individualism with the views of Thrasymachus, and to think that Plato, in his fight against it, is fighting against all the subversive and nihilistic tendencies of his time. But we should not allow ourselves to be frightened by an individualist bogy such as Thrasymachus (there is a great similarity between his portrait and the modern collectivist bogy of ‘bolshevism’) into accepting another more real and more dangerous because less obvious form of barbarism. For Plato replaces Thrasymachus’ doctrine that the individual’s might is right by the equally barbaric doctrine that right is everything that furthers the stability and the might of the state.”

NationalismIndividualismPolitical PhilosophyTotalitarianismCollectivismPlatonismAnti IndividualismAnti Democratic ThoughtState Oppression
Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato
Create image

“From the point of view of totalitarian ethics, from the point of view of collective utility, Plato’s theory of justice is perfectly correct. To keep one’s place is a virtue. It is that civil virtue which corresponds exactly to the military virtue of discipline. And this virtue plays exactly that rôle which ‘justice’ plays in Plato’s system of virtues. For the cogs in the great clockwork of the state can show ‘virtue’ in two ways. First, they must be fit for their task, by virtue of their size, shape, strength, etc.; and secondly, they must be fitted each into its right place and must retain that place. The first type of virtues, fitness for a specific task, will lead to a differentiation, in accordance with the specific task of the cog. Certain cogs will be virtuous, i.e. fit, only if they are (‘by their nature’) large; others if they are strong; and others if they are smooth. But the virtue of keeping to one’s place will be common to all of them; and it will at the same time be a virtue of the whole: that of being properly fitted together—of being in harmony. To this universal virtue Plato gives the name ‘justice’. This procedure is perfectly consistent and it is fully justified from the point of view of totalitarian morality. If the individual is nothing but a cog, then ethics is nothing but the study of how to fit him into the whole.”

OppressionAlienationTotalitarianismCollectivismOrganizational CultureTop DownAnti IndividualismHierarchical SystemsCog In The MachineState Oppression
Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato
Create image

“But we must realize that even this tendency to restrict the exploitation of class privileges is a fairly common ingredient of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is not simply amoral. It is the morality of the closed society—of the group, or of the tribe; it is not individual selfishness, but it is collective selfishness.”

SelfishnessNationalismAltruismTotalitarianismEgoismCollectivismTribalismIdentity PoliticsGroupthinkAnti Individualism
Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato
Create image

“L'endoctrinement de la jeunesse dans les écoles était l'un des principaux piliers de ces États esclavagistes. En vérité, la principale différence entre les horreurs du XXème siècle et les despotismes plus anciens est que ces tyrannies modernes ont dû reposer sur un soutien des masses plus direct, et que par conséquent l'alphabétisation obligatoire et l'endoctrinement ont joué un rôle crucial.”

FreedomLibertyLibertarianSchoolingFrenchCollectivismIndoctrinationStatismVoluntaryismNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismLibertéAustrian School Of EconomicsGuerrePaixAnarchieLibertarienState SchoolséTatismePrincipe De Non AggressionEducation Nationale
Author:Murray N. Rothbard
Create image

“Socialists seem to think George Orwell’s 1984 is a suggestion, or at least are unashamed of mimicking the methods of the totalitarian state Orwell depicted. Libertarians know it to be a warning, and a government that micro-manages all aspects of humanity an intolerable reality.”

FreedomLibertyLibertarianSocialismCommunismLibertarianismSocialistTotalitarianismCollectivismLibertarian PartyDemocratic SocialismTotalitarianUtopian SocialismSocialistsUtopian SocietyCollectivistsUtopian SocialistDemocratic Socialists
Author:A.E. Samaan
Create image

“Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. ‘Communism,’ said I to myself.”

CommunismCollectivismUtopian Socialism
Book:The Time Machine
Create image

“In the final analysis, the relation of the individual to society must not be conceived after the atomistic and mechanistic pattern of bourgeois individualism which destroys the organic social totality, or after the biological and animal pattern of the statist or racist totalitarian conception which swallows up the person, here reduced to a mere histological element of Behemoth or Leviathan, in the body of the state, or after the biological and industrial pattern of the Communistic conception which ordains the entire person, like a worker in the great human hive, to the proper work of the social whole. The relation of the individual to society must be conceived after an irreducibly human and specifically ethicosocial pattern, that is, personalist and communalist at the same time; the organization to be accomplished is one of liberties. But an organization of liberty is is unthinkable apart from the amoral realities of justice and civil amity, which, on the natural and temporal plane, correspond to what the Gospel calls brotherly love on the spiritual and supernatural plane. This brings us back to our considerations of the manner in which the paradox of social life is resolved in a progressive movement that will never be terminated here-below. There is a common work to be accomplished by the social whole as such. This whole, of which human person are the parts, is not ‘neutral’ but is itself committed and bound by a temporal vocation. Thus the persons are subordinated to this common work. Nevertheless, not only in the political order, is it essential to the common good to flow back upon the persons, but also in another order where that which is most profound in the person, its supra-temporal vocation and the goods connected with it, is a transcendent end, it is essential that society itself and its common work are indirectly subordinated. This follows from the fact that the principal value of the common work of society is the freedom of expansion of the person together with all the guarantees which this freedom implies and the diffusion of good that flows from it. In short, the political common good is a common good of human persons. And thus it turns out that, in subordinating oneself to this common work, by the grace of justice and amity, each one of us is trill subordinated to the good of persons, to the accomplishment of the personal life of others an, at the same time, to the interior dignity of ones own person. But for this solution to be practical, there must be full recognition in the city of the true nature of the common work and, at the same time, recognition also of the importance and political worth--so nicely perceived by Aristotle--of the virtue of amity.”

FaithPoliticsChristianitySocietyEconomicsIndividualismCollectivismSocial EthicsPersonalism
Book:Person and the Common Good
Create image

“What is peculiar and novel to our age is that the principal goal of politics in every advanced society is not, strictly speaking, a political one, that is today, it is not concerned with human beings as persons and citizens, but with human bodies. ... In all technologically advanced countries today, whatever political label they give themselves, their policies have, essentially, the same goal: to guarantee to every member of society, as a psychophysical organism, the right to physical and mental health.”

FreedomResponsibilityLibertyRightsDoctorsMedicineLibertarianSocialismHealth CareTaxationPsychiatryViolationCoercionSystemCollectivismStatismLaissez FaireSocialized MedicineFree MarketsNanny State
Author:W.H. Auden
Create image

“This ground-plan, conceived by a great architect, exhibits a fundamental metaphysical dualism in Plato’s thought. [...] In politics, it is the opposition between the one collective, the state, which may attain perfection and autarchy, and the great mass of the people—the many individuals, the particular men who must remain imperfect and dependent, and whose particularity is to be suppressed for the sake of the unity of the state (see the next chapter). And this whole dualist philosophy, I believe, originated from the urgent wish to explain the contrast between the vision of an ideal society, and the hateful actual state of affairs in the social field—the contrast between a stable society, and a society in the process of revolution.”

IdealismPlatoSocial ChangeConservatismPolitical PhilosophyAuthoritarianismCollectivismPlatonismImmutabilityAutarchy
Book:The Open Society and Its Enemies - Volume One: The Spell of Plato
Create image

“Government as we now know it in the USA and other economically advanced countries is so manifestly horrifying, so corrupt, counterproductive, and outright vicious, that one might well wonder how it continues to enjoy so much popular legitimacy and to be perceived so widely as not only tolerable but indispensable. The answer, in overwhelming part, may be reduced to a two-part formula: bribes and bamboozlement (classically "bread and circuses"). Under the former rubric falls the vast array of government "benefits" and goodies of all sorts, from corporate subsidies and privileges to professional grants and contracts to welfare payments and health care for low-income people and other members of the lumpenproletariat. Under the latter rubric fall such measures as the government schools, the government's lapdog news media, and the government's collaboration with the producers of professional sporting events and Hollywood films. Seen as a semi-integrated whole, these measures give current governments a strong hold on the public's allegiance and instill in the masses and the elites alike a deep fear of anything that seriously threatens the status quo.”

PoliticsBeliefPeaceFreedomLibertyDemocracyCapitalismSlaveryTradeProsperityLibertarianSocialismAnarchyIrrationalFreeTaxationTheftTotalitarianismCoercionSuperstitionCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismMarketsLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleEmpireSubjugationAustrian School Of EconomicsFree MarketsSelf OwnershipVoluntaryistUseful IdiotsCommuni
Author:Robert Higgs
Create image

“There must be something beyond your existence. Now people endlessly dwell on their own issues and identity. There is nothing beyond that, no higher cause, no greater calling. And that’s exactly why they are so depressed, so disenchanted. What could be worse than being your own 'god'? You can be sure no one will ever worship you. What’s to worship?”

GodExistenceIdentityWorshipIndividualismCollectivismSacred Cause
Book:Without the Mob, There Is No Circus
Create image

“Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.”

CollectivismProgressivismRight WingersConservativecrapIdeological Turing Test
Author:George Will
Create image

“Las conclusiones más significativas se refieren a la necesidad de que cada individuo se forme por sí mismo su propia opinión de la realidad sin aceptar acríticamente la autoridad de los maestros occidentales, el deber moral de usar los propios dones o bienes (inteligencia, poder, dinero) teniendo siempre presente una proyección social, la obligación de respetar la libertad de los demás al tiempo que se defiende la propia o la posibilidad de cohonestar la (prioritaria) autoexigencia personal con otros valores respetables como el servicio a la nación. Al final, el discurso se transforma, a partir de una advertencia a los jóvenes japoneses de 1914, en un alegato a favor de la independencia personal, de la libertad y de la tolerancia, es decir, en una afirmación de valores humanistas de significado universal.”

ExistentialismJapanIndividualismRomanticismCollectivismPsycheMeijiWesternization
Book:My Individualism & The Philosophical Foundations of Literature
Create image

“Even the richest person, provided the riches comes from mutually beneficial exchange, does not need to give anything "back" to the community, because this person took nothing out of the community. Indeed, the reverse is true: Enterprises give to the community. Their owners take huge risks, and front the money for investment, precisely with the goal of serving others. Their riches are signs that they have achieved their aims.”

GovernmentPoliticsFreedomBusinessCompanyLibertyViolenceCommunicationCapitalismEntrepreneurLibertarianSocialismEntrepreneurshipAnarchyTaxationFree MarketTheftMafiaCoercionCollectivismStatismParasitesVoluntaryismLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleAncapAnarcho CapitalismThugs
Author:Jeffrey Tucker
Create image

“As long as government has the power to regulate business, business will control government by funding the candidate that legislates in their favor. A free-market thwarts lobbying by taking the power that corporations seek away from government! The only sure way to prevent the rich from buying unfair government influence is to stop allowing government to use physical force against peaceful people. Whenever government is allowed to favor one group over another, the rich will always win, since they can "buy" more favors, overtly or covertly, than the poor.”

PoliticsPeaceFreedomLibertySocietyEconomicsProsperityLibertarianIndividualismCoercionCollectivismStatismVoluntaryismIndividual RightsLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleAncapFree MarketsRegulationsCrony Capitalism
Author:Mary J. Ruwart
Create image

“From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State, the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is themselves. They will be ready then to endure the sacrifices that are ahead of us, war or no war.”

WarSocialismCollectivismDemocratic SocialismDying For Your CountrySounds Drab
Book:The Lion and The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
Create image

“A cop's JOB is to violently enforce upon the rest of us whatever arbitrary bullshit the political parasites declare to be "law." It is, therefore, impossible to be a "law enforcer" and behave morally, for the same reason one can't be a moral car-jacker.”

WarGovernmentLawEvilPoliticsPeaceFreedomLibertyViolenceSocietyCrimePoliceLibertarianSocialismCommunismAnarchyFreeMafiaCoercionCollectivismStateStatismVoluntaryismNon Aggression PrincipleAncapLaissez
Author:Larken Rose
Create image

“Property taxes' rank right up there with 'income taxes' in terms of immorality and destructiveness. Where 'income taxes' are simply slavery using different words, 'property taxes' are just a Mafia turf racket using different words. For the former, if you earn a living on the gang's turf, they extort you. For the latter, if you own property in their territory, they extort you. The fact that most people still imagine both to be legitimate and acceptable shows just how powerful authoritarian indoctrination is. Meanwhile, even a brief objective examination of the concepts should make anyone see the lunacy of it. 'Wait, so every time I produce anything or trade with anyone, I have to give a cut to the local crime lord??' 'Wait, so I have to keep paying every year, for the privilege of keeping the property I already finished paying for??' And not only do most people not make such obvious observations, but if they hear someone else pointing out such things, the well-trained Stockholm Syndrome slaves usually make arguments condoning their own victimization. Thus is the power of the mind control that comes from repeated exposure to BS political mythology and propaganda.”

GovernmentSchoolEvilPoliticsForcePeaceFreedomLibertyViolenceMediaSlaveryTradeLibertarianSocialismCommunismPropagandaAnarchyFreeTaxationFree MarketTheftMafiaCoercionSchoolingCollectivismIndoctrinationStatismPublic EducationPublicBrainwashingVoluntaryismLaissez FaireNon Aggression PrincipleAncapInitiation Of Force
Author:Larken Rose
Create image