The Individual and the Community

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chap. 1

That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... To justify [compulsion], the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else... Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

Georg W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, sec. 258

If the state is confused with civil society, and if its specific end is laid down as the security and protection of property and personal freedom, then the interest of the individuals as such becomes the ultimate end of their association, and it follows that membership of the state is something optional. But the state's relation to the individual is quite different from this. Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life. Unification pure and simple is the true content and aim of the individual, and the individual's destiny is the living of a universal life.

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the
bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank
with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the
State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the
bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of
all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s
factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the
existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, On Repentance, pp. 114-115

Judaism has always viewed man from this dual perspective. It sees every person as an independent individual and also as part of a community, a limb of the body of Israel. Jewish thinkers have conducted an ongoing dialectic on this subject throughout the ages. The pivotal question is: Does the individual stand above the community which should serve its needs, or should the individual subordinate himself to the community's needs? In Judaism this question has been asked in relation to the individual who serves as a community leader. Who, in our history, was a greater leader than Moses, redeemer of Israel, the great rabbi and teacher, about whom our Sages wrote that his worth was equivalent to that of six hundred thousand men, meaning the total number of the male community of his time? Nonetheless, when the children of Israel fashioned the Golden Calf, "God said to Moses, 'Go down - lower yourself down; for did I not grant you greatness only to benefit Israel? And now that Israel has sinned, what need have I of you?'" (Berakhot 32b). Even the greatness of an individual like Moses is dependent upon the community. It would seem that the community and the individual are placed in balance with each other and are interdependent. At times we find that the community must sacrifice itself on behalf of the individual ... And at times the individual must sacrifice himself for the good of the community.

Never is the individual's worth belittled when measured against the whole community; and never is the community undermined because of any individual or individuals. Each has its own position of strength.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith

The community of which Adam the first, majestic man, is a member, is a natural one, a product of the creative, social gesture, in which Adam engages whenever he thinks that collective living and acting will promote his interests. I term this community a natural one, because the urge for organized activity at this level is not nurtured by the singular needs and experiences of spiritual man created in God's image but by biological instinctual pressures. It is a natural reaction on the part of man, as a biological being bent on survival, to the menacing challenge of the outside world. In fact, the root of the instinct of gregariousness which is the very foundation of the natural community is to be found already in the animal kingdom...

Adam the first is challenged by a hostile environment and hence summoned to perform many tasks which he alone cannot master. Consequently, he is impelled to take joint action. Helpless individuals, cognizant of the difficulties they encounter when they act separately, congregate, make arrangements, enter into treaties of mutual assistance, sign contracts, form partnerships, etc. ... The whole theory of the social contract brought to perfection by the philosophers of the age of reason, reflects the thinking of Adam the first, identifying man with his intellectual nature and creative technological will and finding in human existence coherence, legitimacy and reasonableness exclusively... They considered the individual ontologically perfect and existentially adequate...

According to the Biblical story, God was not concerned with the loneliness of Adam the first... Eve vis-a-vis Adam the first would be a work partner, not an existential co-participant.

Adam the second is still lonely. He separated himself from his environment which became the object of his intellectual gaze. "And the man gave names to all the beasts and to the fowl of the heaven and to every animal of the field." He is a citizen of a new world, the world of man, but he has no companion with whom to communicate and therefore he is existentially insecure. Neither would the availability of the female, who was created with Adam the first, have changed this human situation if not for the emergence of a new kind of companionship... (pp. 20-22)

Adam the first was not called to sacrifice in order that his female companion come into being, while it was indispensable for Adam the second to give away part of himself in order to find a companion. The community-fashioning gesture of Adam the first is, as I indicated before, purely utilitarian and intrinsically egotistic and, as such, rules out sacrificial action. For Adam the second, communicating and communing are redemptive sacrificial gestures...

The covenantal faith community, in contradistinction to the natural work community, interprets the divine pronouncement "It is not good for man to be alone" not in utilitarian but in ontological terms: it is not good for man to be lonely (not alone) with emphasis placed upon "to be"... Adam the second must quest for a different kind of community... His quest is for a new kind of fellowship which one finds in the existential community. There, not only hands are joined, but experiences as well; there, one hears not only the rhythmic sound of the production line, but also the rhythmic beats of hearts. (ibid., pp. 26-28)

The second is a community of commitments born in distress and defeat and comprises three participants: "I, thou, and He," the He in whom all being is rooted and in whom everything finds its rehabilitation and, consequently, redemption. Adam the first met the female all by himself, while Adam the second was introduced to Eve by God... God is never outside of the covenantal community. (ibid., p. 28)

If God had not joined the community of Adam and Eve, they would have never been able and would never have cared to make the paradoxical leap over the gap, indeed abyss, separating two individuals... Only when God emerged from the transcendent darkness... did Adam absconditus and Eve abscondita, while revealing themselves to God in prayer and in unqualified commitment - also reveal themselves to each other in sympathy and love on the one hand and common action on the other... Friendship - not as a social surface-relation but as an existential in-depth-relation between two individuals - is realizable only within the framework of the covenantal community where in-depth-personalities relate themselves to each other ontologically and total commitment to God and fellow-man is the order of the day. (ibid., p. 45)

Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, Orot

The relationship between the Jewish people and its individual members is different than the relationship between any other national group and its constituents. All other national groups only bestow upon their individual members the external aspect of their essence. But the essence itself each person draws from /the all-inclusive soul, from the soul of God, without the intermediation of the group... This is not the case regarding Israel. The soul of the individuals is drawn from ... the community, the community bestowing a soul upon the individuals. One who considers severing himself from the people must sever his soul from the source of its vitality. Therefore each individual Jew is greatly in need of the community. He will always offer his life so that he should not be torn from the people, because his soul and self-perfection require that of him. (p. 144)

This does not constitute man's greatest joy. This applies to a regular state ... which is not the case regarding a state founded on an ideal, in which is implanted in its very existence the most sublime ideal content, which is truly the individual's greatest joy. This state is truly the highest on the scale of happiness. And this is the case with our state, the state of Israel. (ibid., p. 160)