Are Socialists Really Collectivistic?

[hmkpoker]

This is going to sound kind of funny, but I believe that most modern-day leftists aren't really collectivists at all; they're individualists (albeit grossly misguided ones :P).

Most socialists that I have spoken with do not actually act with society, as a whole, in mind. Rather, they see the forest for the trees. Most social goals are done with individuals, namely the disadvantaged, in mind. The ends are geared toward helping specific individuals, not the entire social economy.

To exemplify what I mean by thinking with the collective in mind, consider a human body. While most of us would view the human body as a whole, we know that logically it is simply a collection of highly interdependent cells. It so happens that the world we live in requires us to view these cells as more than a sum of their parts.

Almost every cell in a healthy body is a boon to the rest of the cells (and naturally for the rest of the body). We would view a living cell as a generally good thing. However, when a cell becomes dysfunctional and cannot serve its purpose, the behavior taken toward it is extremely un-socialistic. The cell is left to die, devoured by phagocytes, removed from the system, and terminated so that it does not pose a threat to the body.

This is extremely contrary to the view of "seeing the forest for the trees." If we view the body as nothing more than the sum of its cells, and prioritize the life of the individual cells as the end of our goals, we would have to view this process as wrong and wish that nutrients were delivered to struggling cells instead.

This is, in my opinion, extremely analogous to the socialist view of society. The individuals they aim to help are undoubtedly a drain on society. Those who produce less than they consume must represent a drain on our social resources. This is glaringly obvious. To protect them with limited resources can only occur by reallocating resources produced by those who benefit society, and, because they act with self-interest, must therefore inhibit their production.

A true collectivist would see poor people as an unnecessary drain on our social resources, and would give them a very low social priority, for the true greater good.