A social system is:
a set of
moral-political-economic
principles
embodied
in a society’s
laws, institutions, and government,
which determine
the relationships,
the terms of association,
among the men/women
living
It is obvious that
these terms and relationships
depend on
an identification of man’s nature,
that they
would be different
if they pertain
to a society of rational beings
or
to a colony of ants.
It is obvious that they will be radically different
if men/women
deal with one another
as free, independent individuals,
on the premise that
every man/woman
is an end in themself
or
as members of a pack,
each regarding the others
as the means to his ends
and
to the ends of “the pack
as a whole.”
There are only
two fundamental questions
or
two aspects of the same question
that
determine the nature of any social system:
Does a social system
recognize individual rights?
and:
Does a social system ban
physical force from human relationships?
The answer to the second question
is the practical implementation of
the answer to the first.
A social system is
a code of laws
which men observe
in order to live
together.
Such a code must have
a basic principle,
a starting point,
or it cannot be devised.
The starting point
is the question:
Is the power of society
limited or unlimited?
Individualism answers:
The power of society
is limited
by the inalienable,
individual rights of man.
Society may make only such laws
as do not violate these rights.
Collectivism answers:
The power of society
is unlimited.
Society may make any laws it wishes,
and force them upon anyone
in any manner it wishes.
The political philosophy of collectivism
is based on a view of
man as a congenital incompetent,
a helpless, mindless creature
who must be fooled
and ruled
by a special elite
with some unspecified claim
to superior wisdom
and a lust for power.
Ayn Rand - 'Who will protect us from our Protectors? and Philosophy Who Needs It ?
