Collective and Community

What’s the difference between the two terms – collective and community?

Community is the easier of the two to define. It means people sharing life with one another – some greater and others of lesser degree – such as family members sharing household, neighbors sharing the same street, and blocks of neighborhoods forming a neighborhood, then a village, town, city, and county. Several counties together become a state. Several states become a region and nation. Several nations become global community.

Sharing common things among each other. Schools, institutions, government agencies, business community, work colleagues, careers, industries, and so forth. So many parts. So many pieces. Each of us individually has a role to play, and we rely on one another.

We build an individual career, marry, have families and build dynamic households that educate, emotionally support and challenge each other. Together we prosper. Through thick and thin we are of one blood.

Same with other families who commit to live in neighborhoods and towns. We share the experiences of the community. We sense when the community is in need and respond to that need. We donate time, effort, talents and even money to make the community whole. Why? So it is healthy for all those who are living within it.

In that manner, we support schools, libraries, park districts, fire protection districts, city governments with streets and sanitation services, police and social services. Our schools are special. This is where our kids learn the basics of life and form ideas that will eventually become their life story. They will build their futures like we did. They will learn about science, humanities, music, art, physical fitness, nutrition, math, logic and philosophy. History, too. History as ever evolving and building. Knowing and understanding what happened and why leads to futures of intent and self-sustaining quality.

We make these things happen. We pay for them. We support them. We participate in them. We know that what we know must be passed on to future generations, so they carry civilization forward.

So much of what we have together is from collective action and investment. That’s where the term collective enters the picture. It seems to me that community and collective are opposite sides of the same coin.

Yet, in college I learned economics and competing ideologies that supported or competed against capitalism, socialism and communism. The terms then were clear. Today I think they are not. Clarity is needed.

Communism is an economic system governed and owned by the people through its central government. All means of production and commerce are controlled, owned and planned by government authority. The people share and share alike in the results of that system. It doesn’t essentially reward people based on their contributions or effectiveness in the system.

Socialism is a system in which both government and society own and control the economy. Like capitalism, some people own businesses or stock in major corporations, banks, and land. The government owns and controls another large portion of the same. Depending on what an individual contributes to the whole, they will be rewarded with the net income or outcomes of the operations. Non-asset owning citizens are encouraged to own their piece of the society but if they do not, they will still benefit from the operations of the whole.

Capitalism is a system by which the assets that produce wealth – land, buildings, corporations, commercial enterprises, etc. – are owned by individuals and groups of individuals through stocks. Owners of capital goods invest in that which will provide a return on their investments. They pay taxes to government to provide the shared services needed to the common good. Under capitalism the net outcomes of society fall back to those who own the capital assets.

The United States is a comingling of capitalism and socialism. Has been for some time. Government controlled programs and agencies that watch over the common good of most citizens are in clear evidence. Schools. Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. The former are tax supported entities we all pay for. The latter is only provided to help those who cannot afford medical care at all. Social Security and Medicare are programs that are paid for by the beneficiaries by way of enforced taxes as premiums. They share benefits of the programs at certain planned phases of their lives whether they need them or not, much like any investment or insurance plan.

Why do I raise these issues in this post? Because people are throwing around terms as though they truly understand them when in truth the concepts are far more complicated than what I’ve put forth here.

It should be recognized, however, that capitalism is not the hero of the hour. It is neither all one thing or the other. In modern day America capitalism is aided and abetted by government authority and money. The return on those investments are not shared equally by all, even when government was a key investor or bearer of key expenses. The losses from capitalism, however, are usually sustained by all citizens in the form of tax subsidies, tax write-offs and bailouts when crises occur.

Capitalism also gains from public schools, streets, curbs, water and sewer systems, transportation systems, research and development produced by public institutions (universities, colleges and government agencies). Yet nowhere in their balance sheet or income/expense reports are those benefits reported.

We have a hybrid social structure – a lot of capitalism and some socialism. It is a blend. And it is not bad. It is workable and necessary.

Those who benefit from giveaway tax cuts and huge bailouts, subsidies and kind regulations, should not complain. They are earning benefits the rest of us do not experience.

Perhaps this system needs some tweaks?

November 4, 2020