The new freedom is to be founded on the new individualism. Many people in their zeal for a “socialized” life are denouncing “individualism.” But individualism is the latest social movement. We must guard against the danger of thinking that the individual is less important because the collective aspect of life has aroused our ardor and won our devotion. Collectivism is no shortcut to do away with the necessity of individual achievement; it means the greatest burden possible on every man. The development of a truly social life takes place at the same time that the freedom and power and efficiency of its members develop. The individual on the other hand can never make his individuality effective until he is given collective scope for his activity. We sometimes hear it said that the strong man does not like combination, but in fact the stronger the man the more he sees cooperation with others as the fitting field for his strength.

But we must learn the method of a real cooperation. We cannot have any genuine collectivism until we have learned how to evolve the collective thought and the collective will. This can be done only by everyone taking part. The fact that the state owns the means of production may be a good or a poor measure, but it is not necessarily collectivism or a true socialism. The wish for socialism is a longing for the ideal state, but it is embraced often by impatient people who want to take a shortcut to the ideal state. That state must be grown⁠—its branches will widen as its roots spread. The socialization of property must not precede the socialization of the will. If it does, then the only difference between socialism and our present order will be substituting one machine for another. We see more and more collectivism coming: so far as it keeps pace with the socialization of the will, it is good; so far as it does not, it is purely mechanical. Some people’s idea of socialism is inventing a machine to grind out your duties for you. But every man must do his work for himself. Not socialization of property, but socialization of the will is the true socialism.

The main aim in the reconstruction of society must be to get all that every man has to give, to bring the submerged millions into light and activity. Those of us who are basing all our faith on the constructive vision of a collective society are giving the fullest value to the individual that has ever been given, are preaching individual value as the basis of democracy, individual affirmation as its process, and individual responsibility as its motor force. True individualism has been the one thing lacking either in motive or actuality in a so-called individualistic age, but then it has not been an individualistic but a particularistic age. True individualism is this moment piercing through the soil of our new understanding of the collective life.