The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy.
Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies.
To fight it, we must understand it.
Totalitarianism is collectivism.
Collectivism means
the subjugation of the individual to a group
whether to a race, class or state does not matter.
Collectivism holds that
man must be chained to
collective action and collective thought
for the sake of what is called
``the common good.´´
no tyrant ever rose to power
except
on the claim of representing
``the common good.´´
Napoleon ``served the common good´´ of France.
Hitler is ``serving the common good´´ of Germany.
Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake
are perpetrated with a clear conscience by
``altruists´´ who justify themselves by-
the common good.
No tyrant has ever lasted long
by force of arms alone.
Men have been enslaved primarily
by spiritual weapons.
by spiritual weapons.
And the greatest of these
is the collectivist doctrine
is the collectivist doctrine
that the supremacy of the state
over the individual
constitutes the common good.
No dictator could rise if men
held as a sacred faith
the conviction that
they have inalienable rights of which
they cannot be deprived
for any cause
whatsoever,
by any man
whatsoever,
neither by evildoer
nor
supposed benefactor.
supposed benefactor.
This is the basic tenet of individualism,
as opposed to collectivism.
Individualism holds that
man is an independent entity
with an inalienable right
to the pursuit of his own happiness
in a society where
men deal with one another
as equals.
The American system is founded on individualism.
If it is to survive,
we must understand
the principles of individualism
and hold them
as our standard
in any public question,
in every issue we face.
We must have
a positive credo,
a clear consistent faith.
We must learn to reject as total evil the conception that the common good is served by the abolition of individual rights. General happiness cannot be created out of general suffering and self-immolation. The only happy society is one of happy individuals. One cannot have a healthy forest made up of rotten trees.
The power of society must always be limited by
the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.
the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.
Without the right to private property
no independent action is possible.
The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men. 
Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims. Society can only be a traffic policeman in the interaction of men with one another.
From the beginning of history,
two antagonists have stood face to face,
two opposite types of men:
the Active and the Passive.
The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence — in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other men — nor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion. Every type of good work — from laying bricks to writing a symphony — is done by the Active Man. Degrees of human ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence and initiative determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man.
He welcomes collectivism,
which eliminates any chance
that he might have to think or act on his own initiative.
When a society is based on the needs of the Passive Man it destroys the Active; but when the Active is destroyed, the Passive can no longer be cared for. When a society is based on the needs of the Active Man, he carries the Passive ones along on his energy and raises them as he rises, as the whole society rises.
This has been the pattern of all human progress.
The history of mankind is the history of the struggle between the Active Man and the Passive, between the individual and the collective. The countries which have produced the happiest men, the highest standards of living and the greatest cultural advances have been the countries where the power of the collective — of the government, of the state — was limited and the individual was given freedom of independent action.
As examples: The rise of Rome, with its conception of law based on a citizen's rights, over the collectivist barbarism of its time. The rise of England, with a system of government based on the Magna Carta, over collectivist, totalitarian Spain. The rise of the United States to a degree of achievement unequaled in history — by grace of the individual freedom and independence which our Constitution gave each citizen against the collective.
While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress: Individual Man in independent action.
Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery.
A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.
originally published : Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90
