The End is Nigh

The primacy of the individual, the great accomplishment of Western thought, is almost over.

If we look at Eastern thought, the interest of the collective has always been understood to be the best interest of the individuals in most cases.  The vital political units are families, communities, and states.  Individuals are envisioned as only being able to flourish and succeed to the extent that they are of service in their roles to these units.  This suggests a very different moral order than Western thought since modernity, which has oriented society and law around the liberties of the individual. 

What makes socialist (and Marxist) thought generate different conclusions from statist communism is the Eastern vs. Western value placed upon the individual. Many forms of socialism are liberal (i.e. what we call Eurosocialism) at this root level:  They propose that societal wealth should be relatively equally distributed for the purpose of promoting the political equality, prosperity, and thus happiness of all individuals.  This is what Marx saw as the purpose of communism.  What happened when Marxism got misapplied in the 20th happened because it was interpreted according to Eastern political assumptions common in Russian and Chinese culture.  In statist Communism as it emerged in the USSR and China, the individual was there to serve the common good rather than the other way around.

The other politico-economic system that emerged in the West in the 20th century attacks individualism in a different way, indirectly. In fascism, the individual only has meaning in relation to their status as part of and service to the nation and its nation-centric ideology.  This is why liberals and progressives are uncomfortable with too much nationalistic symbolism and discourse.  They tend to see it as a means of subsuming individualism under national identity, when they believe that the purpose of the nation should be to facilitate the self-determination of the individuals within it. 

Where we seem to be headed in this country now is an amalgamation of fascism and plutocracy (or, as it was labeled in Russia, a kleptocracy).  In this system, fascistic nationalism is wielded as a xenophobic weapon to justify late-stage capitalism.  A few of the richest and most powerful individuals matter while everyone else does their national duty by subsuming their individuality in a national drive to support the importance of those few individuals. We are supposed to be happy renting tiny apartments or living in trailers, always mere weeks from utter poverty, while a few people who wield billions of our dollars each determine what the rest of us will do.  We are supposed to believe that our ills come from foreigners and evil conspirators on the Left, rather than the threat to our individual political and economic power from the kleptocrats.

This movement represents a radical departure from the direction the U.S. was headed between 1932-1980.  That period showed us slowly transitioning to a mixed economy.  We were carefully moving to an approach that was socialistic enough to cure poverty and give opportunity to all, yet capitalistic enough to allow and promote for different levels of economic success, all while expanding political liberties.  It was heading to the grand realization of the primacy of the individual citizen. 

Disappointments in the 1970’s that seem mild in hindsight scared people into empowering deeply conservative plutocrats.  They started to undermine all the work of the prior period, destroy the expanded middle class, and create fertile grounds for the current neo-fascist ideology. 

While it was the Republicans who spear-headed this turnaround, both major political parties have participated.  The Clinton & Obama administrations were no less Reaganite than either of the Bush ones, really.  Democrats have been unable to find a footing for an identity of their own since Reagan.  They end up being just economic-conservatives-lite.  No matter who has controlled Congress since 1980, no legislation to turn back the plutocratic-fascistic tide has ever had a serious chance. 

One of the few remaining roadblocks against American neo-fascism, a jurisprudent rather than ideological Supreme Court, was ended by 2020.  The only two elements remaining are (1) federalism that allows the will of more democratic and socialistically minded states to resist and (2) the deeply entrenched system of rule of law which is still dominated by civil servants devoted to a pluralistic society and the Constitution.  Neither of these are guarantors that we could turn this ship around any time soon.  The current administration is trying to remove both of these impediments as fast as they can.

The primacy of the individual, equal in political rights, secure in economic prosperity, is almost over.