Is individualism racist?

In the U.S., individualist thought is identified with a "conservative" economic and social policy, which prioritizes individual rights to property and free enterprise over so-called "social rights." The assumption is that upholding social rights -- positive entitlements owed to all human beings -- compromises individuals' freedom of action, or their ability to enjoy all the fruits of their labor. Although individualism also fits quite well with hedonist notions prevalent on the U.S. left, the constant appeals to individual liberty by corporate types and their Republican defenders have soured many leftists on individualism as the basis of rights in a democratic society. In the July 29/August 5 Nation, Greg Grandin praises Bernie Sanders for "waging practically a one-person crusade to legitimize social rights" and "striking at the core cultural belief that holds the modern conservative movement together." For Grandin, the concept of social rights dates at least as far back as the 18th century, when the pre-revolutionary French philosopher Montesquieu wrote that that states owed their citizens "a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health."  For what it's worth, Montesquieu also wrote that the "spirit of trade and industry," as opposed to an indolence encouraged by some charitable entities, like the monasteries of pre-Reformation England, was a precondition for a state's ability to uphold those social rights. That's not inconsistent with the familiar Democratic argument for capitalism with regulations and taxes for the common good, but Grandin seems to have something more radical than that in mind.

Grandin affirms the premise, articulated by Franklin Roosevelt, that "necessitous men are not free." In other words, also FDR's, "true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." However, economic individualism rationalizes efforts to thwart the achievement of mass "economic security" or liberate people from necessity. The ideology of individual liberty, Grandin fears, can't help but perpetuate the inequality that undermines "true individual freedom." In modern times, he argues, that ideology has become actively malevolent. His article -- in which he speaks presumably for himself and not necessarily for Sanders -- leaps from the assumption that individualism = inequality to the more explosive assertion that, through the words and deeds of modern Republican conservatives, individualism has become racialized to the degree that it serves as one of the many "dog whistles" that stir up the rednecks everywhere.  Unfortunately for Grandin, there's more assertion than proof in his article. He claims that American reactionaries began to identify "social rights" with racial equality after World War II, once international bodies increasingly demanded both. "As the 'darker nations' took up the fight to legitimize social and economic rights, the opposition intensified, with individual rights embodying whiteness and social rights exemplifying blackness," Grandin writes. This is too neat a package for its own good. It ignores the fact that during the Cold War, Marxism and communism weren't really identified with "dark" people, but with the Russians and decadent domestic intellectuals, the popularity of nonwhites like Mao and Che notwithstanding. Grandin's deductive reasoning seems to go like this: individualism perpetuates inequality; inequality is largely along racial lines; therefore individualism endorses racial hierarchy. He may as well say that individualists refuse to acknowledge their privilege. "It is impossible to extricate individual rights -- to possess and bear arms and to call on the power of the state to protect those rights -- from the bloody history that gave rise to those rights, from the entitlements that settlers and slavers wrested from people of color as they moved across the land," he insists.

"Individual-rights absolutism is the flywheel that keeps all the cruel constituencies of the modern right spinning," Grandin closes, "Break that wheel, and you break the movement." That would require convincing some of those constituencies that the individualist ideology is as contradictory and self-defeating (or self-serving) as he thinks it is. I don't see that happening soon. For one thing, the modern American right rejects the Rooseveltian premise Grandin admires; for them, the realm of necessity is the realm of freedom, in which no one is owed a living and freedom consists of being able to do what you have to do without interference. For another, a wider swath of American opinion is going to distrust arguments against "individual-rights absolutism" out of concern for an individual right Grandin doesn't discuss that nonetheless is the most important right for many people: freedom of expression. I'm sure Grandin sees very little conflict between "social rights" and individual expression, though he may contemplate more state action to prevent perceived inequalities of access to mass attention than others can accept comfortably. He more likely believes that guaranteeing social rights will allow greater freedom of expression for a wider range of people than the corporate-monopolized media currently allows. But you can't go around saying "individual rights are bad" without making people worry that babies might get thrown out with the bathwater of inequality.  In short, a lot of people will have a lot of different reasons, both good and bad, to balk at breaking the wheel, though they all may be written off as selfish, or worse, by people like Grandin. Inequality will have to grow much worse than it is already before enough people decide there's nothing in it for them in the American ideal of individual rights. That could very well happen, but I'd advise against Grandin holding his breath for too long.