What Is Individualism?

It started in 1782. England was in the throes of a major transformation from a feudal to a capitalist economy. Macpherson argues that this was what initiated a possessive individualist worldview. He quotes “The human essence is freedom from any relations other than those a man enters with a view to his own interest. The individual’s freedom is rightfully limited only by the requirements of others’ freedom. The individual is proprietor of his own person, for which he owes nothing to society.” It was the aftermath of a struggle between parliament, a civil war, republicanism, the monarchy and constitutional revolution and we, today, think we live in challenging and interesting times. 

Whilst it began here, it of course didn’t end. However, the eighteenth century certainly shaped the concepts of freedom, rights, obligations and justice. This freedom of independence from others was characterised by two things; the commodity of ones own labour and ownership of land.

Hobbes model of a possessive market society is even more concerning. He argued that within a culture of individualism (something he actively believed in) there is ceaseless competitiveness for the power over others. His model is very anti social, something Margaret Thatcher bestowed in her comment “There is no society, only individuals and families.” Hobbes further describes that all society “is either for gain, or for glory; that is, not so much for love of our fellows, as for the love of ourselves.” The development of individualism heavily constructed capitalism and the market society we have all been born and bred in.

Macpherson also believed that “If a single criterion of the possessive market society is wanted it is that man’s labour is a commodity.” And, so to some degree, capitalism was born and organisations using man’s labour as a commodity can be seen the length and breadth of employment.

But a new horizon has emerged with social media playing a key role, a ‘new individualism.’ According to Elliott & Lemert (2009) it has four main elements:

1. Constant self-reinvention

2. The need for change

3. A focus on short-termism and episodicity

4. An interest in speed and dynamism. They support this with  evidence of short-term project work, compulsive consumerism, downsizing, self help manuals, makeovers and reality television.

New individualism has significant emotional consequences for people’s private and public lives that also seem to be merging into one. Elliott & Lemert argue that those impacts are a by-product of globalisation and global capitalism.

The value, or worth of a man, in a market society is based upon what he owns; power comes from land, property and possession. However, in the future this will lead to a profound relationship with the self.  Lasch believes that we have been brought up in a society that is focused on living ‘one day at a time’ and everyday life thereby being a ‘serious of minor emergencies.’

This new individualism is literally a descendant of the old individualism that Hobbes, Locke and Macpherson refer to, exasperated by technology and a world that changes day to day not year to year. It has huge implications for the future of society that is becoming fluid, full of risk, change dependent and very much around individual expression.