Individualism and collectivism represent two fundamentally opposed visions of the relationship between the individual and society.

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises used to say: Only the individual thinks, only he reasons, only he acts.

As a result, a collective has no existence or reality, other than the actions of the individuals who are its members. Society has no will, no thought. All collective actions must be explained in terms of their individual components. We cannot speak of "the action of the state, of a country, of a company, of a trade union": it is always individuals who act.

Any social body therefore exists only through the intermediary of those who claim to be part of it in their actions. If no one claimed it, it would cease to exist. Likewise, a language only exists through the individuals who speak it. If they stop speaking it, it ceases to exist.

From an ethical and legal point of view, the individual is the only moral agent. There is no other reference for defining good and evil. Notions of right and wrong, of rights and duties, make sense only for singular individuals, not for communities, countries or even animals.

The fundamental anthropological principle underpinning this well-understood individualism was clearly set out by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century: Dare to think for yourself.

This injunction, originally taken from an epistle by Horace published twenty years before our era, was taken up and popularized by Immanuel Kant in his essay What is the Enlightenment? published in 1784. For Kant, this phrase is the motto of the Enlightenment, symbolizing man's emergence from his minority, a state of inability to use his understanding without the guidance of others, for which he himself is responsible, through laziness and cowardice.

Human beings are neither mere animals nor slaves. He belongs to himself and is endowed with a free will, a capacity for choice informed by reason. In short, human beings are ends in themselves, not means for others. This is what gives him his moral dignity.

But by empowering human beings in this way, individualism nevertheless can seem to many a frightening experience. Are we ready to take responsibility for our own lives?

Collectivism, whether economic or political, is a philosophy that relies on an authority outside the individual - the state or the majority - to impose a certain way of life and economic condition on the individual. Decisions are taken in the name of this superior entity. The private interests of individuals must therefore be subordinated to it.

Collectivism thus places the collectivity, whether national, cultural or religious, in the foreground, viewing individuals as means to strengthen and ensure the perpetuity of this supreme entity. The goals of the collectivity, whether nation, state or church, are superior to those of the individual. From this point of view, the primary function of institutions is to serve society, even to the detriment of individuals.

For Karl Max: "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence; on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines their consciousness". Marx thus emphasized that the individual is deeply rooted in social reality, and that his consciousness is determined by this reality. In other words, the individual is only real insofar as he is a member of society, and his individual existence only has meaning in the context of the class struggle for the common good.

According to Mises: There is no uniform collectivist ideology, but many collectivist doctrines. Each exalts a different collective entity and demands that all decent people submit to it. Each sect worships its own idol and is intolerant of rival idols (Theory and History).

For Mises, there are right-wing and left-wing collectivisms. National Socialism, along with Mussolini's Fascism, are right-wing collectivisms. Communism and socialism are left-wing collectivisms. For him, there's no great difference between Hitler's Nazism and Stalin's communism. Even if the motivations are different, in both cases there is a hatred of individual freedom and a justification of violence.

Based on this distinction, the political families can be analyzed as follows:

Two opposing conceptions of society will always remain irreconcilable: the individualist conception - for which man is a being of reason and freedom, capable of organizing his own relations with other men - and the collectivist conception, according to which society exists independently of the men who make it up, their desires and their wills. The collectivist conception has seen some of its most monstrous concretizations in Marxist totalitarianism, but, despite appearances, it is also what social democracy is linked to. Pascal Salin, Libéralisme.

In a similar vein, philosopher Karl Popper wrote in his 1945 book The Open Society and its Enemies: I call closed society the magical or tribal society, and open society that in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions. (Tome I, p.199).

According to Karl Popper, the open society and the closed society are fundamental concepts that describe radically different principles of social organization, with no possibility of synthesis between them:

Totalitarianism is the political form this closed society takes when implemented in a radical, modern way, relying on an ideology of certainty and using state control mechanisms (censorship, propaganda, cult of the leader) to impose forced stability, to the detriment of individual freedoms and critical thought. Its obsession is the perpetuation of its hierarchical order, and submission to its unchanging traditions and collective beliefs. In these societies, social control takes the form of constant and close mutual surveillance, while the individual does not exist as such, but is dominated and encompassed by the community.

The main difference between the two models of society lies in their attitude to knowledge, change and political organization:

This opposition highlights the fundamental incompatibility between a model based on individual freedom and critical reason, and another founded on organic unity, irrationality and collective submission.

But the open society is fragile, always unfinished and constantly being called into question. It is confronted by nostalgic tendencies, the loss of the sense of security that the tribal community embodied for its members, and the desire to restore the original communitarian order, possibly through violence.