THE NEW STATE
By Mary Parker Follett

Chapter IX
The New Individualism

The new freedom is to be founded on the new individualism.  Many
people in their zeal for a "socialized" life are denouncing
"individualism."  But individualism is the latest social movement. 
We must guard against the danger of thinking that the individual is
less important because the collective aspect of life has aroused
our ardor and won our devotion.  Collectivism is no short cut to do
away with the necessity of individual achievement; it means the
greatest burden possible on every man.  The development of a truly
social life takes place at the same time that the freedom and power
and efficiency of its members develop.  The individual on the other
hand can never make his individuality effective until he is given
collective scope for his activity.  We sometimes hear it said that
the strong man does not like combination, but in fact the stronger
the man the more he sees cooperation with others as the fitting
field for his strength.

  But we must learn the method of a real cooperation.  We cannot
have any genuine collectivism until we have learned how to evolve
the collective thought and the collective will.  This can be done
only by every one taking part.  The fact that the state owns the
means of production may be a good or a poor measure, but it is not
necessarily collectivism or a true socialism.  The wish for
socialism is a longing for the ideal state, but it is embraced
often by impatient people who want to take a short cut to the ideal
state.  That state must be grown--its branches will widen as its
roots spread.  The socialization of property must not precede the
socialization of the will.  If it does, then the only difference
between socialism and our present order will be substituting one
machine for another.  We see more and more collectivism coming; so
far as it keeps pace with the socialization of the will, it is
good; so far as it does not, it is purely mechanical.  Some
people's idea of socialism is inventing a machine to grind out your
duties for you.  But every man must do his work for himself.  Not
socialization of property, but socialization of the will is the
true socialism.

  The main aim in the reconstruction of society must be to get all
that every man has to give, to bring the submerged millions into
light and activity.  Those of us who are basing all our faith on
the constructive vision of a collective society are giving the
fullest value to the individual that has ever been given, are
preaching individual value as the basis of democracy, individual
affirmation as its process, and individual responsibility as its
motor force.  True individualism has been the one thing lacking
either in motive or actuality in a so-called individualistic age,
but then it has not been an individualistic but a particularistic
age.  True individualism is this moment piercing through the soil
of our new understanding of the collective life.


