Collectivism - The Way of the Shaitaan
The hidden doctrine that penetrates every aspect of your life. Part 1
ਕਰਨਿ ਬਖੀਲੀ ਆਪਿ ਵਿਚਿ ਰਾਮ ਰਹੀਮ ਕੁਥਾਇ ਖਲੋਈ || ਰਾਹਿ ਸੈਤਾਨੀ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਗੋਈ ॥੩੩॥
- Bhai Gurdas Ji, Vaar 1; Pauri 33
Collectivism- a political or economic theory advocating collective control [e.g. OWNERSHIP] esp. over production and distribution or a system marked by such control.
[Websters’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1983, ISBN 0-87779-510-X, p. 259]
Transcript of a Video Interview with G Edward Griffin
Collectivism – G Edward Griffin (Free Market News-1990s)
John: Collectivism
Griffin: This is kind of a dictionary game isn’t it, because that word ‘Collectivism’ although it’s in the dictionary and it was used quite a bit in historical documents, current history documents of a century ago, it’s almost vacant from the modern vocabulary. Collectivism as you just said in your introduction, is the underlying general ideology that is common to so many of the totalitarian systems of modern times, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, all three of those have as their underpinning certain common elements to an ideology that really, they’re the only things you should be looking at. The names Communism, Fascism, Nazism are just labels, but they don’t describe anything, collectivism is what we’re talking about. So what is collectivism?
We don’t have time for all of it but we’ve been able to identify certain common components, one of them is the idea that the group is more important than the individual, and that the individual if necessary must be sacrificed for the greater good, of the greater number. Now, as I’ve said many times that is something that I learned in school and I thought it made a lot of sense at that time, because I was told that we were living in a democracy, and in a democracy isn’t it true that 51% of the vote should rule, and that all made sense to me at the time.
But forgive me if I repeat myself here for your listeners who may have heard this before, but for those who just tuned in this is an important piece of information; a democracy, a pure democracy is not a good idea, as our founding fathers clearly stated when they created this country they discussed the merits and demerits of a democracy and to a man they said, “we do not want a democracy for this country, we want a republic” and they were very emphatic on that. Now that’s strange to the modern reader, because don’t we have a democracy? Isn’t democracy a good thing?
John: Yes, don’t we have a democracy...a good thing. (agreeing)
Griffin: Well, lets just analyse for a minute. A democracy is... a pure democracy is based on the concept of a majority rule and that’s the end of it. Then you say what’s wrong with that? Well there could be plenty wrong with that, and the best example I can think of is a lynch mob. Now the majority rule there; there’s only one dissenting vote and he’s at the end of the rope.
John: Yes
Griffin: Well, a thinker would say, “woah,...wait a minute we better go back over this,” so you come quickly to the decision that the majority should rule, okay; but within certain limitations. Not to the extent of denying the rights of the individual or a minority, that should be something that even the majority should not be allowed to do, because we know from history and our founding fathers knew from history, that a mob can be a very vicious thing and its possible for a demigod, to whip up the passions of a mob and actually sway the majority in moments that would be very destructive of the rights of individuals or minorities, and that’s why they wrote the constitution, which when you analyse it in general was a series of limitations on what the majority can do.
John: Now, if we had a pure democracy then, a mob vote could take place and say, “well people over the age of 72 are a burden, let us legally put them to sleep because it would be better for the economy as whole,” we could vote this type of thing in.
Griffin: Absolutely, and all they have to do is claim that their action is for the greater good of the greater number, you see; now that’s one of the foundations of Collectivism. Now the individualist on the other hand and that the other side of the debate, individualist vs collectivist. The Individualists looks at society, says “wait a minute, what is this thing called group?”
“Where is a group?”
“Can you point to a group?”
“Can you see a group?”
You can’t, you can only see individuals, the word ‘group’ is an abstraction, it’s a word concept, an image to the mind that doesn’t really exist, except to the extent that individuals exist, it’s like the word ‘forest’. There’s no such thing as a forest, there are only trees, you can see trees but you cannot see a forest, so it’s an abstraction, when you then, therefore base a political philosophy on an abstraction and you say that this abstraction has ‘rights’ that are greater than the individual; you’ve made a huge mistake, because what you’re doing is sacrificing the so called group anyway but you’re doing it one person at a time. And the irony of it is that the leaders of this so called democracy or concept of collectivism of the superiority of the group, the leaders are making the decisions of what is best for the greater number.
They’re the ones who are saying that were going have to get rid of everybody over 70 or everybody over 60, or everybody we don’t like, because we don’t like the way they think, maybe they’ve got hate crimes or something, or they maybe they don’t vote republican or don’t vote democrat, we don’t like them for some reason and its for the greater good of society; we’re just going to have to put them in jail or possible eliminate them. So that’s one of the tenants of collectivism and the individualist says, “no you can’t do that, the rights of the minority and the individual must be preserved.”
Well, there are other things we could talk about, let’s take one more example to nail this down. Collectivists and individualists generally agree as to what should be done in society, they both want good things for their fellow man, for their families and for the world. They want peace, security, justice, they want health, they want freedom; well I’m not so sure about the collectivist because he’s willing to trade freedom for some of these other things, but they all want good things, where they differ is how to bring them about. The collectivist says, we’ll use force, we’ll use coercion, these are good, and by golly we know they’re good, we’re smart, those dumb people out there may not be so smart and so for their own good, we have the obligation to rule.
John: Is this what’s happening now in the EU? I don’t want to digress you but let’s just parallel whats going on.
Griffin: John this is happening everywhere in the world. This has been happening everywhere in the world for decades, almost all of the laws that are on our books are as a result of this mentality, we are going to decide what is good for a society or for you folks and we’re not going to give you a choice because you’re too darn dumb possibly, to know we are right, so we’re going to take your choice away from you for your own good, we’ll pass a law.
The individualist on the other hand says, “well I agree this is good thing to do, but I believe in freedom of choice. I want to use persuasion, the power of good example, but not coercion.”
A classic example, a harmless example would be seat belts. Now everybody agrees seat belts are a good thing, the collectivist says, “yeah they’re so good. You know there are dummies out there that won’t put them on, so let’s pass a law and we’re going to put those people in jail if they don’t do what we think they should do for their own good.” The collectivist wants coercion to bring about the good things in society. The individualist says “I think seat belts are a good idea too, but I don’t believe in forcing people to wear them if they’re too dumb to not wear them.
John: ‘Buckle up it’s the law.’
Griffin: It’s ‘Buckle up it’s the law’...One of the ways you can spot the collectivist mentality is, no matter what they’re peeved about they say “There ought to be a law,” that’s their first instinct, they’re going to force people to do things. And the individualist of course believes in the freedom of choice. Now we can down the scale, but that’s basically what we’re talking about. We’re talking about principals not labels, we’re not talking about Socialism, Communism, Fascism, or now what is being sold to the American people as Americanism, another word, boy has that changed over the past fifty years or sixty years, you know. Americanism today is not the Americanism of our founding fathers, it’s the Americanism of some of these systems we have been talking about.
John: Sounds like a user friendly name, like you can have two names for a road, we have here 441 which also state road 7, you can say, collectivism and Americanism, its how do you want to couch it.
Griffin: It depends on which word you like, yeah right. So that basically what we’re talking about when we use the word collectivism, it’s the mentality that government is the solution to all problems, and that government is a constructive good and it should be used almost in place of ones religion, it’s the kind of thing we look to for guidance and salvation.
John: Well we’ve allowed the government to grow. Have we allowed it or has it grown on itself, has our freedom been stolen for us, from behind the scenes?
Griffin: Well it’s kind of a co-operative thing I think. We’ve gone to government schools, have we not? Most of us, I did and so we’ve been taught that collectivism is a good thing.
Collectivism is the instrumentality that brings about big government and it works the other way around. Big Government if it controls the educational system can really make sure that the curricula that the students have inoculates in their minds an admiration of collectivism, and it certainly did in mine, it took quite a bit of introspection and reading and challenging for me to break out of that mould, you know; because I was taught some of the things we were just talking about earlier. So, I think that the people in government of course want to expand their power because that’s pretty heady stuff, it’s a good job you might say. Also they are social engineers, they want to change society that’s part of the collectivist mind, they want to do all those “good” things for those ‘dummies’ out there.
So that gives them a sort of a personal power they like, but by the same token the people themselves fall, for the rhetoric about how good this would be for them, to have seat belt laws for example, ‘it’s that good’ and the folks say, “yeah we think that’s good”. So they go along we it you see. So it’s sort of a back and forth thing to the point where many people today cannot image what life would be like, having to make their own decisions on anything...
15.21 mins…
John: When people stop thinking and stop caring, is that a breeding ground for collectivism?
Griffin: I think that is not the breeding ground, I think that’s the result of it. I think that is what you find as a symptom of it, not the cause of it. People stop caring because they’ve been told it doesn’t make any difference, and not only does it not make any difference, they’re not important anyway, they can be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number. So they’re taught to focus only on the big picture, society, the future of man kind. They themselves consider that they are dispensable, I think it’s a symptom rather then a cause.
Watch G. Edward Griffin's Interview Here
Quotes:
“It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains... The invasion of New Deal Collectivism was introduced by this same Trojan horse.”
- Herbert Hoover 31st President of USA.
“Collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of. ... By bringing the whole of life under the control of the State, Socialism necessarily gives power to an inner ring of bureaucrats, who in almost every case will be men who want power for it’s own sake and will stick at nothing in order to retain it.”
- George Orwell.