A person who lives in a society, in most cases, cannot but belong to some system of organization of this society, he does not live outside of it. There are many forms of such an organization, one of which is collectivism.
Collectivism is a form of organization of society in which the most important is not an individual human personality, but a collective of people. Collectivism has been characteristic of people since ancient times, when a person could not yet survive alone in the wild and did not even realize himself as a separate individual.
The development of collectivism in society
How could primitive people be able to defend themselves alone from wild animals, get their own food by killing a large predator, equip a home and provide its protection, keep the fire in one place? It was impossible even for a whole family, let alone one person. Therefore, people lived in communities, and since then, in the human mind there is an understanding that many things are much easier to do collectively than alone.
In later times, collectivism is preserved as a system for organizing the work of individual groups or the life of entire communities. On the basis of collectivism, state systems of practically all known totalitarian regimes were built: communism, socialism, fascism. In all these systems, the general tasks of society were presented to citizens as paramount, each person had to reject their own desires for the sake of working for the good of society as a whole.
Why does collectivism work?
This form of organizing society has shown itself to be very effective for many reasons. People tend to take care not only of themselves, but also of their family, community, social group, moreover, working for the benefit of another person sometimes gives more pleasure than taking care of oneself. In addition, a person needs to feel his involvement in the affairs of the group, to feel the importance of his actions. It is in the form of collectivism that he fully feels the importance of his actions.
Therefore, work for the benefit of a social group, especially if it means the whole country, is perceived as an extremely noble, necessary and important deed. Together with massive propaganda, the work of a huge number of people in the form of a large team in certain periods of history has shown incredible results. The share of production increased sharply, the country rallied around a single goal, crises were overcome, and the life of an entire people improved. Without collectivism, it would be impossible or extremely difficult to achieve such results.
Collectivism pursues the disclosure of the noble impulses of man, forcing him to reject individualism and egoism. But at the same time, it also promises benefits for the individual: the system of values of collectivism includes building a better future for each member of society. And although for a long time it has not been possible to successfully maintain the spirit of collectivism in people on the basis of enthusiasm and propaganda alone, nevertheless, elements of this system are present in the modern model of almost any group activity. As soon as it comes to teamwork, denying individual desire for the sake of successful group work, responsibility for other people - we are talking about a form of collectivism.
