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Single Idea 20690

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / b. Liberal individualism ]

Full Idea

States and markets use their growing power to weaken the bonds of family and community. They made an offer that couldn't be refused - 'become individuals' (over marriage, jobs and residence). The 'romantic individual' is not a rebel against the state.

Gist of Idea

The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community

Source

Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: brief history of humankind [2014], 18 'Collapse')

Book Ref

Harari,Yuval Noah: 'Sapiens: a brief history of Humankind' [Vintage 2014], p.402

A Reaction

[compressed] See the film 'Breaking the Waves'. An interesting slant on the Romantic movement. See Wordsworth's 'Michael'. Capitalism needs shoppers with their own money, and a mobile workforce.

Related Idea

Idea 20718 Modern western capitalism has free labour, business separate from household, and book-keeping [Weber]

The 29 ideas from 'Sapiens: brief history of humankind'

20663 If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari]
20664 Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari]
20669 Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari]
20670 Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari]
20673 Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari]
20671 In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari]
20666 Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari]
20667 Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari]
20668 Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari]
20665 Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari]
20674 The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari]
20675 The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari]
20676 History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari]
20677 Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari]
20678 The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari]
20679 We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari]
20684 Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari]
20685 No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari]
20681 The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari]
20682 The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari]
20683 The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari]
20687 In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari]
20686 For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari]
20690 The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari]
20689 In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari]
20691 Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari]
20688 People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari]
20692 Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari]
20693 Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari]