Individualism and Collectivism are not mutually exclusive, but hierarchical power and ‘the sovereign individual’ are, indeed, mutually exclusive
I believe every adult individual should be able to have a say in the decisions that affect their life. For this reason, we must oppose hierarchical power structures as much as possible. If you are at the bottom of a hierarchical power structure, it means that someone else ends up making decisions for you. In that moment, you are no longer a sovereign individual, instead you are a subjugated and oppressed person.
Jordan Peterson often talks about the supremacy of “the sovereign individual”. At the same time, he talks about the importance and benefits of hierarchies. Because of this, he’s completely inconsistent. I agree with him on the sovereign individual: people should have the resources to make decisions for themselves, and we should oppose situations in which other people get to make decisions for you. This implies an opposition to hierarchical power, since people at the bottom of a hierarchy do not get to have a say in the decisions that affect their life.
The situation of workers under capitalism is the best example of this. Employees are not sovereign individuals. They are subjugated to their employers. Workers, unless they join a strong union, do not have a say in what their wage is, what their working conditions are or how the company they work at spends its budget, all being things that directly affect their life. They are at the bottom of a hierarchical, top-down power structure (the workplace). This is why I support workplace democracy. Everyone should have a say in the decisions that affect their life, including workers.
Moreover, conservatives like Peterson love to create a false dichotomy between ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’ as if they are mutually exclusive or inversely proportional. In reality, the only way to achieve individual freedom is through collective solidarity. In order to have one, you need the other as well. Collective solidarity does not mean forced conformism to the hivemind, it means voluntary cooperation between individuals. When we are united, we are stronger. United we stand, divided we fall. That’s why workers should cooperate in order to create strong labor unions that can negotiate better wages and working conditions for them. When two or more people cooperate as equals, one is not subjugating the other, instead each person is free to make decisions for themselves and have a say in the decisions that affect their daily life.
The only system and ideology that can achieve these goals is libertarian socialism. Libertarian socialism holds that right now there is too much power and responsibility in the hands of too few people and that this power needs to be spread out more equitably among people in society. Right now, we live in an oligarchy in which a small minority of people make decisions for the large majority. Libertarian socialism opposes both capitalism and authoritarian-state socialism, instead proposing a decentralized, democratic economy of worker cooperatives in which economic democracy and workplace democracy are strongly incentivized and encouraged. In this system, both individual freedom and collective solidarity can thrive together, and all hierarchical power structures can be reduced, or if unjustified, completely abolished.
