Individualism

Individualism is the outlook that the individual person, not the group, is the basic unit of moral worth and social analysis. It stresses personal rights, self-reliance and the freedom to make one's own choices and be responsible for them.

In political thought it grew with the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, which held that government should protect individual rights and not dictate ways of life. In the American tradition it is linked to ideals of self-reliance found in writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the economic argument for markets and to the Bill of Rights. Alexis de Tocqueville, however, who coined the French word individualisme, worried that it might lead citizens to withdraw from public life.

Conservatives often defend individual rights and responsibility while also stressing the family, church and community, so the relationship between individualism and community is a recurring debate on the right. Libertarians are the most consistent defenders, and critics on the left and some on the right argue that excessive individualism erodes social bonds, as in the arguments of postliberalism. It is the opposite of collectivism and underlies private property and negative-liberty.