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http://disinfo.com/2014/07/alternatives-liberal-individualism-authoritarian-collectivism/

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Alternatives to Liberal Individualism and Authoritarian Collectivism
A thought provoking essay from Jeremy Gilbert on how the confines of "Liberal Individualism" and "Authoritarian Collectivism" stifle true democracy.

The issue is not individualism vs collectivism, it is scale.

Ancient people lived together in tribes. This is somewhat the synthesis of individualism and collectivism: What's good for you is good for your family, your tribe.

The tribe was destroyed by the Roman Empire (or even older authoritarian civilizations) by removing natural tribal solidarity through reducing such natural social cohesion to core families, thereby isolating them into separate living spaces for better control, esp taxation. Divide and conquer.

Higher orders of social cohesion have been provided by governmental institutions since then (school, religion, etc).

We're used to this societal structure to this day. It's not natural.

Who knows, maybe we will see some kind of neo-tribalism in the internet age now, families in-spirit. Like-minded people can and should come together and self-organize most affairs of their lives in a largely self-sufficient way (see aquaponics, open source ecology and village construction set, 3D printing, biotecture, etc). This is the only sensible countermovement I can see against the estrangement that modern life brings, no matter if you call it "capitalism" or "socialism", power-of-the-might "individualism" or "totalitarian" collectivism.

It all boils down as to whether whatever this society that is being described puts a premium on rights or not. The spectrum is entirely dependent on that. And, is the instituted government's purpose to protect those liberties or does it exist to protect the state at the expense of those liberties. And yes, the base form of a right is the freedom of action of the individuals that make up the state or the consent of the governed. Most people would agree that there is a right to life but from there the waters can get murky really fast. The right to life holds endless corollaries that are residual rights all stemming from natural law. If you have the right to life, you should have the right to protect it or consume what you want assuming all responsibilities there of.

The right to be left alone unimpeded by others to enjoy one's liberty is a negative right. Positive rights, if there is such a thing, are those that require someone else to provide you with something and this is where the term gets flipped upside down. The alleged positive right of one directly affects the negative rights of another. If one has a right to life and consequently to work for themselves or their family to add value to this life or lives then it would also mean that nobody else has a right to make a claim on someone else's life or labor for their own purposes unless there's a consensual agreement in place. In comes all forms of welfare via government mandate or democratically elected legislatures. The USA was a constitutionally limited republic where the rules were enshrined in a document that became the governing contract between the people and their government. Unfortunately, as time went by less and less people paid attention to that document and thus elected or were swindled into electing other people that didn't uphold their oaths of office. Hence, we evolved into a democracy where the minority's rights aren't expressly protected as originally intended. A simple majority can now vote away the rights and wealth of the minority and that's how big government rises.

Nicely put.

Also like to add that specialization in the old days is the reason for tribalism to exists. All members of a tribe must contribute in his own unique way for whole tribe to survive and thrive. Large scale production have change how society organize itself.

Quoting this for future reference.

According to the MonkeySphere the optimum community size is about 150 people.

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html