Thoughts on to what extent these two arguments are linked? I'm researching the topic for a speech and started wondering to what extent a Collectivist society could promote freedoms to the individuals, or how far could a society that promotes Individualism exercise authority?

They're pretty closely linked.

Libertarian doctrine is dependent on personal freedoms and liberties and authoritative states often operate "for the good of the society", whether or not they actually do.

My issue came up when I was researching the theories of John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx.

Mill wants the least state/authority possible to allow for the most freedoms of choice, but it seems without some authority there would be a lack of resources like education.

Marx wants there to be no oppression or exploitation of people, and no state, but he supports a collectivist society where everything is cooperatively owned.

Both seem to want liberty, one is focused on the individual and the other on the community as a whole. Previously, I was using collectivist as a synonym for supporting authority until I thought about this. One thing I've got is that Aristotle still seems in favor of authority, though.

Quote from: Essessen on November 15, 2015, 09:17:02 PM

Quote from: DAS B(⌐■_■)ﾒ on November 15, 2015, 08:54:26 PM

They're pretty closely linked.

Libertarian doctrine is dependent on personal freedoms and liberties and authoritative states often operate "for the good of the society", whether or not they actually do.

My issue came up when I was researching the theories of John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx.

Mill wants the least state/authority possible to allow for the most freedoms of choice, but it seems without some authority there would be a lack of resources like education.

Marx wants there to be no oppression or exploitation of people, and no state, but he supports a collectivist society where everything is cooperatively owned.

Both seem to want liberty, one is focused on the individual and the other on the community as a whole. Previously, I was using collectivist as a synonym for supporting authority until I thought about this. One thing I've got is that Aristotle still seems in favor of authority, though.

Marx's final communist society is some kind of weird, basically impossible, and incomprehensable anarcho syndicalist-esque community.

Yeah, I noticed that it sounded nice in theory but was departed from reality and difficult to make sense of. It also ended up causing more authoritarian states than anything else.

Still, it seems more complicated than the two are synonymous. People working together as a collective without some authority, like laws, holding them together seems possible if they had something in common. And Mill did support authority to prevent the harming of others, despite largely being in favor of the individual. I have only done some research, but maybe there's more than just some wiggle room?