Individualism, the source of development and growth
Have you ever thought about what takes the human being to the limits of his ability? What is the incentive of every human being to progress or develop? And the most important... Is it about having to screw someone else to get an own benefit?
Several times I have met people who claim that the root of all evils on earth is the selfishness of the human being, and that we would live in a much better world if we dared to think more about other people rather to ourselves. A few years ago I watched a documentary about the life of Lionel Messi, how the player had grown up and trained as a footballer until becoming the best player in the world, there are even many experts who claim he is the best player in history of football (or soccer, whatever), something quite incredible since Lionel from a childhood suffered an anomaly in his organism that didn't allow him to grow more than a certain height which was considered very low for a soccer player. However this didn't stop the star of FC Barcelona, he spent every day training and improving his way of playing until one day managed to impress very much the agents from FC Barcelona,the Messi's way of playing was that unbelieveble that these guys decided to pay the treatment for him so that Messi could grow a little more and thus be in a more equated condition compared to his opponents.
The rest is simply history, you don't need to be an expert in football (or soccer) to know the ability of Lionel Messi on the pitch against any team he faces. But what I would like to mention in this story is what led the Argentinian to be what he is today, and that is no more than the desire of each person to achieve the best possible results under the efforts made by themselves, I mean, individualism.
Many people have a misunderstanding of what this principle is, often confused with greed which is also about gaining their own benefit, but without measuring the consequences it may have for other people, better said, a person does not mind even killing another person if that makes him a "rich" person. Clearly that is very wrong, but that is not individualism. Individualism is about being a person quite personalized precisely to the standards of oneself, and seeking self-benefit without harming the individual rights of other people. And it is that throughout history there have been cases more impressive than those of Lionel Messi, people who were also in search of own benefits achieved things that today are considered the most important discoveries in the history of mankind, how can be the case of the internet or electric light.
Individualism brings people to their fullest potential. As a child it seemed confusing to me how a country was rich or poor, little by little I was growing and understanding at the same time that what made a country rich was the freedom that its citizens had within it to develop their individual self without anyone who would limit them. And it is quite obvious, when a person is encouraged and in the optimal conditions to develop as that person wants, he will seek by all means to achieve his goals, which makes it a prosperous and successful person, the rich are usually people who offer a value (service) in exchange for a value (money), but what leads these people to want to offer the first value (service) is the incentive to obtain and accumulate the second value (money), without the second value the first is meaningless. People like Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison or the Rockefeller himself would never have tried anything but for the human stimulus that brings them to these great achievements, individualism. If they had been told that all their services were to be enjoyed by any other kind of people and they would not get anything in exchange for it, why would they bother to create something special after all?
Individualism promotes cooperation between people, contrary to what many people think. What is absolutely necessary to clarify is that the great projects in humanity have never been carried out by a single person, but by several willing to cooperate because they pursue a goal or a value that the project that is being carried out may offer that kind of value or goal without any problem, if such a reward cannot be offered by the project or whatever is being carried out, probably very few people are willing to cooperate, so that the bigger and more beneficial is a project promoted by a individual, it is more likely that there will be more people willing to cooperate with that individual, after all everyone wins. Check Apple's case, Steve Jobs at the time of creation Apple was looking for market supremacy over their opponent Microsoft, and because of this they had a huge team of specialists in every field sued by Steve, as Steve really knew Less than 10% of all that was needed to bring a company to its highest level. But what makes the electronics designer, for example, want to cooperate with Steve Jobs? Very simple, it is nothing more than the desire for the reward, and to obtain it people must cooperate or offer the value to obtain another.
Without the individual instinct of each person, we would simply be animals without any control. What sets us apart from animals in this world is that we have a conscious mind, capable of rationalizing ideas, capable of devising different paths and capable of creating different results from other people, it all depends on the type of thinking that a person has which develop that person. That is why I do not think that in order to eradicate the poverty of the world it is necessary to give resources to these "poor" people, but rather to create the optimal conditions so that in the long term these people can create their own reality for better or for worse, and let's face it, no one in the world wants a fatal destiny for himself, so with the right conditions (freedom and property) I am very sure that the world would be a better place, with more individualism, with more people developing an independent mind, which is what builds success and wealth.
The mind and desires of a person can never be sacrificed to benefit another group of people who most probably do not know that person, this may be the most atrocious crime of humanity in my opinion, wanting to sacrifice the individuality of a person (or everyone's) to take care of that aberration they call "common good". The mind is a purely individual attribute, when we are young they tell us that "we are all the same", which I think is the greatest fallacy of this world, one person will never think the same as another one, so that person will not act in the same way, and after all obviously will not have the same results, it all depends on the choice of each person.
I have always seen how that thing called "collectivism" whenever someone wants to implement it is never voluntarily for people but rather by force, but ask yourself something: If something is so wonderful why must it be imposed by force? People who are really attracted to something do not have to be forced to consume it, they will do it voluntarily.
So I encourage you to be a more individual being and believe in your own judgment, seek your own benefit (without damaging the individual rights of others) in a proud way because the day you die "the common good" is not going to notice that, Curiously, the most remembered beings in the history of mankind had been beings guided by their individualistic senses.
