In social sciences, individualism has three distinct meanings, i.e., it denotes three different concepts. The first use of individualism refers to an ontological, epistemological, and methodological approach. In this sense, individualism refers to the view that individual actors and their agency have explanatory priority over collective phenomena—society, culture, organizations, and institutions (see the entry methodological individualism).

The second use of the term individualism is to denote important aspects of certain political ideologies. The third way to use the term individualism is to designate a set of values present in individuals or whole societies, regardless of whether those individuals and societies support any specific ideology. At the end of the 19th century, sociologists Ferdinand Tönnies and Émile Durkheim, independent of each other, introduced two-fold classifications of types of human groups. Tönnies’ concept of "society" and Durkheim’s concept of "society of organic solidarity” describe well the aforementioned set of individualist values.

Ferdinand Tönnies is best known for his work Community and Society (1887), in which he presented the dichotomous classification of types of human association. The two main ideal types of human groups are "community" (Gemeinschaft) and "society" (Gesellschaft - also sometimes translated as „association“). Society emerged with the rise of urban culture, customs, and attitudes of the capitalist class (the third class at the time of the French Revolution). Society is characterized by „rational will“ (Kürwille), and the main examples are the city, joint stock companies, scientific institutions, and the like. Societies are created by planned, conscious, and rational action, and the relations of rationality, calculation, selfishness, and emotional distance prevail in them. While relations and order in the community are maintained through tradition and solidarity, society is governed by formal regulations and external sanctions. In society, people live in isolation, everyone fights for themselves, and protects their privacy. In society, all relationships are based on reciprocity; if someone gives or does something to someone, a counter favor or counter gift must have equivalent significance. Society forms the fiction of an entity (subject) that gives general values ​​to the members of society.

A rational will is aimed at achieving a common good - the goal for which the society was founded. The value of a thing is objective, everyone values ​​it in the same way because the same amount of invested work is needed to create it. The very value of a thing stems from the fact that someone owns that thing and no one else. In society, everyone selfishly works for themselves, but they also work for the common good, because everybody produces the goods that are easiest for some person to produce. Thus, the total realized value of goods for the whole society is maximized. Tönnies calls the limited freedom that exists within society, which reflects "natural law," a convention that differs from custom or tradition. Civil society is an aggregate of many natural and artificial individuals, and political economy is a science that needs to know its nature and movement. Competitive relations prevail in civil society, but hostilities are curbed by forming coalitions and through conventional sociability (civility). The emergence of civil society and organizations didn't bring the disappearance of communities, because they continue to survive within civil society.

Émile Durkheim's book Division of Labor in Society (1893), observes the development and evolution from primitive to civilized societies, and pays special attention to the relationship between the type of economy and the division of labor, on the one hand, and the type of solidarity and morality is society, on the other hand. To explain this relationship, he introduces a division into two basic types of solidarity in society - "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity". In societies of organic solidarity, which appear with the emergence of civilization, a complex division of labor is developing. Different experiences and functions in society lead to the creation of different personalities. The connection between individuals is based on different and complementary functions they perform, so this type of solidarity is called organic, because, as in a living organism, where each organ performs a specific function, effective cooperation is necessary for survival in this type of society. Since each person has a different function, there is a development of morality that promotes individualism in society, but individualism in which each person develops their own specificity, to better develop themselves and thus give the greatest contribution to the common good. At the same time, with the development of individualism, there is a decline in the collective consciousness. Durkheim rejects the idea that selfishness and selfish individualism can be the basis for building any kind of solidarity and cohesion in society. In modern society, society's control over the individual is decreasing because the influence of religion, kinship groups, and the neighborhood is declining. Individuals are becoming too individualized and detached from any moral control of the wider society. 

                             Proponents of Individualism

In his book Democracy and Education (1916), John Dewey states that it is necessary to strengthen individualism and community at the same time. He believes that human habits are not a product of personal characteristics, but are a consequence of the institutional framework that exists in society. To change people's habits and strengthen both individualism and a sense of community, it is necessary to manifest deliberative intelligence within the community.

Emma Goldman contributed to the philosophical and ideological spread of anarchism, primarily by linking the ideas of anarchism with feminist and pacifist ideas. Her approach to anarchism was aimed at defending the individuality of individuals, so she claimed that only liberated individuals could achieve a free society. She was skeptical of the masses and emphasized their tendency to become dependent on leaders and their authority. It was the masses who allowed the freedom to be suppressed through authority and coercion. However, she believed that all human beings are capable of rejecting relationships of authority and achieving freedom. The way to realize that freedom is "communal individuality" (based on personal autonomy and voluntary cooperation), which will ensure the sovereignty of the individual, but also social harmony. The emphasis on the freedom of the individual, as a goal, but also a precondition for a free society, became especially visible in Emma Goldman's writings written after her stay in the Soviet Union.

Beck-Gernsheim believes that modernity has led to increased individualization and greater freedom of individual choice, which has had a major impact on changes in family life. Protestant ethics, increased social and geographical mobility, increased levels of education, improved working-class economic conditions, and urbanization and secularization processes have contributed to increasing individualization and freedom of choice. Individuals today are far less limited by traditional rules in choosing their family roles, but, on the other hand, there has been a weakening of the support and security provided by the traditional community. The nuclear family has thus become a place of security and protection from the impersonal and dangerous outside world. The love relationships of the spouses in the nuclear family, which express and fulfill the individuality of both parties, create a new form of security. Individuality and the search for love have created many non-traditional forms of marriage, relationships, and families.

Saymore M. Lipset is also known for studying "Americanism", that is, the essence of the American socio-psychological character. He singles out five main elements of Americanism: commitment to political freedoms, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and faith in the free market.

Friedrich Hayek's advocacy for individualism and personal freedom was closely tied to his economic views. He believed that a free market economy not only promoted efficient resource allocation but also safeguarded individual liberties. His emphasis on individualism was not a call for unchecked selfishness but rather an acknowledgment of individuals' diverse knowledge and preferences. Hayek contended that personal freedom, within the bounds of the rule of law, allowed for creativity, innovation, and the flourishing of human potential. He warned against the allure of collectivist ideologies that sought to subsume individual rights for the sake of a perceived greater good.

               Conservative Critique of Individualism

Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America (1835, 1840), argues that democracy and the personal freedom and legal equality that go with it threaten the tyranny of the majority, increase the number of mediocrities, and lead to individualistic behavior aimed at getting rich. All this would increase social isolation and enable despotism to develop. Tocqueville explored the tensions in American society between the opposing imperatives of democracy - the egalitarian character of democratic societies that successfully eliminates the despotism that exists in feudalism, and the insufficient integration of the individual into the social being. Thus, if democracy is not controlled and thus becomes irresponsible, it can produce too much individualism (a neologism coined by Tocqueville himself) and lead to a new form of despotism. Local associations, because they promote cooperation and solidarity, are precisely the factor that is the main barrier to excessive individualism and the emergence of an atomized society and dictatorship.

In his book Ancient Regime and the Revolution (1856), Tocqueville especially emphasizes the disastrous influence of political centralization on political and social institutions that acted as a link between the government and ordinary people - craft guilds, local assemblies, and others. Centralization, restriction of political freedoms, abolition of intermediary institutions, and weakening of local public political life led to excessive individualism, atomization of society, and general dissatisfaction in all classes. The revolution drastically diminished the position and influence of the Catholic Church, which had previously acted as a unifying factor and thus represented an obstacle to the development of complete individualism.

According to Robert Nisbet, individualism, which is represented by modern social science, denies people the need to belong to the community and leaves them to fight alone against the central government of the state. 

Amitai Etzioni is considered the founder and one of the most famous proponents of the ideology of communitarianism, which he began to develop in the early 1990s. He believes that the individual should act and develop within their community. Due to capitalism and excessive individualism, communities are collapsing. Etzioni sees this process as very dangerous because only strong communities can respond to the needs of society efficiently and reflectively. On the other hand, individuals who actively participate in the development of their community become more responsible citizens. Etzioni believes that it is necessary, in cases of a serious emergency and great danger, to limit some constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to protect the community and individuals, because, according to him, "radical individualism" would jeopardize social responsibility. He also emphasizes the need to increase tolerance and mutual understanding between different communities.

               Critique of Individualism from the Left

In later revisions of his book Principles of Political Economy, and posthumously published Chapters on Socialism (1879), John Stuart Mill argues that a laissez-faire economy didn’t allow for everybody to realize their full development, freedom, and utility. He began to see the rise of a cooperative type of firms as a chance to evolutionary overcome the deficiencies of capitalism, by lessening inequalities and promoting moral progress and a better form of individuality. Richard Tawney, in his book Acquisitive Society (1920), criticizes the individualism and greed promoted and encouraged by industrial capitalism. He proposes the creation of a society based on the principles of cooperation, professionalism, and service to the common good. In the book The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi criticized the self-regulating economy of the free market because he considered it to be economically unsustainable and that it would destroy the social order. The market economy promotes extreme individualism that destroys social cohesion, which is necessary for normal social cooperation.

In Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm explores the history of the development of the authoritarian order in Western Europe in the Modern Age. The authoritarian order in Europe sought to restrict human freedom. Fromm distinguishes between two basic forms of freedom: "freedom from" (negative freedom) and "freedom for" (positive freedom). Capitalist society and Protestantism promote individualism reflected in selfishness and greed, and give people only "freedom from." Individualism brings people to a state of loneliness and helplessness, so they strive to find security under the auspices of the state, institutions, and political parties. Such people connect with the leader through an authoritarian and sadomasochistic relationship. As is a consequence of unfulfilled life, the repressed life energy accumulates, and the energy of destruction grows stronger. There is a denial of true human nature, so people adapt to society through conformism and mimicry. Instead of a real self, people have a false self. Fromm calls this rejection of his true nature an "escape from freedom."

Ulrich Beck developed his approach to modernization, which he called "Reflexive Modernization," which he developed in the book Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition, and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (1994) and "Reflective Modernization Theory: Problems, Hypotheses, and Research Plan" (2003). Reflexive modernization contains three complexes: 1) the risk society theorem; 2) the theorem of forced individualization; and 3) the theorem of multidimensional globalization (cosmopolitanization). Reflective modernity theory encompasses all three theoretical complexes - risk society, individualization, and cosmopolitanization - as interconnected and mutually reinforcing processes that create radicalized forms of modernization dynamics, and that replace the logic of development in early modernity. The transformation of early modernity into reflective modernity (Beck also calls it a “target of change”) is the product of a radical application of key principles of industrial society, but more as a critical mass of unintended and unexpected consequences of those principles than as an expected and planned consequence of industrialization and the logic of early modernity. Reflexive modernization cretes new forms of individualization and everyday life. Institutional individualization requires making individual decisions and taking responsibility for those decisions, where traditions and habits were previously dominant .

In Postmodernity and Its Discontents (1997), Zygmunt Bauman states that postmodernism has led to many key and irreversible changes in society. Collective restrictions of modernity were abolished, and absolute primacy began to be given to freedom of expression of individual desires. The idea that modernity brought - that a good society should be planned and implemented by the state, which was the ideal of the welfare state - that idea was destroyed by postmodernism. Processes of increasing individualization, an unprecedented speed of change in all spheres, criminalization, and exclusion of those who lost the market competition, all led to an increase in the state of general insecurity, doubt, and fear. In the books Liquid Modernity (2000); Liquid Love (2003), Liquid Life (2005), and Liquid Fear (2006), Bauman examines various aspects of this “liquid modernity”. This condition is characterized by extreme individualization and severance of many social and personal ties. While early modernity hampered every form of criticism, liquid modernity encourages criticism, but a whole new form of criticism. Instead of a substantial political and economic transformation, the liquid state encourages an individualistic form of criticism. Instead of calling for a "just society", there is an insistence on the realization of individual "human rights", so the discourse focuses on the right of individuals to be different and to have the unrestricted right to choose their lifestyle. Individuals in the new modernity cease to be "citizens"; they cease to fight, together with others, for collective well-being, and they only become consumers whose only interest is self-affirmation. The consumer society needs a multiplicity of lifestyles and choices because that means that a larger quantity and more diverse goods can be placed on the market. The new age is so liquid that the very meaning of "individualization" is constantly changing because new rules and new roles are constantly being introduced. Individuals are even forced to play a game of constant individualization. "Private" colonized "public," and the public interest is reduced to a spectacle of observing the private lives of celebrities. Bauman believes that the true emancipation of both individuals and society requires the strengthening of the public sphere and its liberation from the private sphere.

                             Measuring Individualism

There have been many empirical studies that tried to conceptualize and measure individualist values. We will present the three most famous and widespread of those studies. In order to conduct a series of empirical studies of values ​​around the world, Ronald Inglehart founded the World Values ​​Survey in 1981, a network of scientists and institutions that have been conducting surveys in over 80 countries for decades. Inglehart, together with Christian Welzel, created the so-called Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World. They classified all the countries from which they had empirical data on a chart with two dimensions: 1) first dimension places individuals on the spectrum, where on one end of the spectrum are traditional values, and on the other end are secular rational values ​​and 2) second dimension places individuals on the spectrum, where on one end of the spectrum are values ​​of self-preservation and on the other end are values ​​of self-realization. Secular rational values in the first dimension and values of self-realization in the second dimension correspond to collectivist values. Using empirically gathered data, they classified countries into nine major cultural areas: Confucian, European-Protestant, Catholic-European, Orthodox, Islamic, African, Latin American, South Asian, and English-speaking. 

Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede conducted a study of 117,000 employees of the IBM company worldwide. He presented the results of this study in the book Culture’s Consequences (1980). Hofstede identified four dimensions as most relevant for understanding differences in values across the world. Those dimensions are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity. After the publication of the book, Hofstede co-founded and became the first Director of the Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation. Through this institution, he and his colleagues continued to research values in over 90 countries, both on the cultural and individual levels. Of his four dimensions, one that relates to opposition between individualistic and collectivistic values has proven to be the most important for further studies of cross-cultural differences. When researching values on the level of individuals, Hofstede uses the concepts of “idiocentrism” (individualism) and allocentrism (collectivism). Societies with a high score on individualism praise values of personal freedom and independence.

American psychologist Harry C. Triandis conducted several cross-cultural studies focused on attitudes, norms, and values. He showed the results of those studies in the book Individualism and Collectivism (1995). Triandis developed the scale with fifty items to measure the various aspects of individualism and collectivism.

References:

Abercrombie, Nicholas. Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism (1986);

Beck-Gernsheim, Elizabeth and Urlich Beck. Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences, (2014);

Beck, Urlich. Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences (2014);

Bellah. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (1985);

Dewey. Democracy and Education (1916);

Dumont, L. Essays on Individualism, Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective (1986);

Durkheim. Division Of Labor In Society (2014, in French 1893);

Etzioni. New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues, Institutions, and Communities (1995); 

Fromm. Escape from Freedom (1941);

     -     Man for Himself (1947);

     -     The Sane Society (1955);

Gans. Middle American Individualism (1988);

Giddens. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (1984); 

Goldman. Anarchism and Other Essays (1910);

Hayek, Friedrich. Individualism and Economic Order (1948);

Inglehart, Ronald. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (1990);

     -     Value Change in Global Perspective (1995);

Kidd. Individualism and After: The Herbert Spencer Lecture (1908); 

Kropotkin. The Conquest of Bread: 1 (The Kropotkin Collection) (2017, in French 1892);

Le Play. The Organisation of Labor in Accordance with Custom and the Law of the Decalogue (1872, in French 1870);

Lipset. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (1996);

     -     It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (2000);

Lockwood. The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (1969);

Lukes, Steven. Individualism (1973);

MacFarlane, A. The Origins of English Individualism (1978);

Macpherson, C. B. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962);

Nisbet. Conservatism: Dream and Reality (1986); 

O’Neill, John (ed.). Modes of Individualism and Collectivism (1973);

Polanyi. The Great Transformation (1944);

Riesman. A Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (1950);  

     -     Individualism Reconsidered (1954);

Tawney. The Acquisitive Society (1920);

Tocqueville. Democracy in America (2021, in French 1835, 1840);

     -     The Old Regime and the French Revolution (2014, in French 1856); 

Triandis C. Harry. Individualism and Collectivism (1995).