I do not agree with the idea that individualism is overall more of a negative for the American people than a positive. There is a long history of American's doing things differently or ignoring their detractors to go on to invent and build radically great things. For example, the long history of inventions from America; powered flight, internet, transistor, electrical light, etc.

Corruption can be the result of individualism, but it only takes a small number of individualistic and immoral people to leverage all the selfless people into giving up their freedom and material assets (i.e. dictators around the world). I don't know how to solve that, but it seems far too simple to say "America has corruption because of individualism" when America appears to be pretty mid-grade or slightly better than average in terms of corruption (https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi#)

That corruption index is an absolute joke.

The UK is massively corrupt. Guess what? They made it legal. Problem solved, let the money laundering and arms sales flow.

Using their measures is the opposite of individualism. This is the USA, a thin cloak of individualism that directs unthinking behaviour. Individuals seeking their own gain without really understanding the currents they swim in, which allows them to believe they are acting within a reasonable framework. Doubtless I'll be told there is no absolute truth and that it's not for me to say, which is also part of the same framework that allows clearly immoral behaviour to proceed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/roberto-savi...

> Your individualism leads not to "freedom" but to accountants who help companies dodge (not avoid) tax, to politicians who don't speak up because it will damage their career, to bankers who extend credit when they know it's unsustainable in pursuit of their bonus, to news anchors who hold their tongue to avoid upsetting sponsors, on and on.

Every one of your complaints is a criticism of institutional incentives and publicly traded corporations rather than individualism.

There is no journalist alive who prefers, as an individual, to hold their tongue to avoid antagonizing sponsors. The possibility of doing otherwise was only ever enabled by the members of the local community who had enough resources to not have to care about losing sponsors by doing the right thing, and who were then willing to stand behind the journalists as the owners of the media company.

Today the companies are publicly traded, and doing that costs the shareholders money (or the parties votes, for political institutions), so anybody who does it is replaced by someone who doesn't. That is what's wrong. But that, ironically, is the consequence of a form of collective ownership. It's the principal-agent problem, where the shareholders as people don't actually want that but the institution is configured to prioritize making more money and you, as the owner of a retirement account which is the owner of an index fund which is the owner of a corporation, are not actually consulted on the decisions being made in your name.

Much of this would be solved if we had fewer layers of indirection between the principals and the agents, i.e. more smaller companies rather than fewer larger ones, or government which is more local and less central, so that the stakeholders who never wanted any of this to begin with are closer to the decisions that are being made in ways they don't prefer and have a better chance of causing them to be made in a different way. That's more of an increase in individualism than anything, though.

You seem to be in a violent agreement with parent.

What parent calls "[flawed] culture", you call "layers of indirection between the principals and the agents". The number of these layers is a vital characteristic of the business culture, and you cannot just wish them away and claim victory.

Have an idea for a system that will work with as many people but less layers - please do tell about it (and about its relation to individualism, if there is any). But my guess it'd be radically different from the current one.

One of the biggest reasons that the economy has transitioned to such enormous corporations is that regulatory compliance burdens are a ratchet. Every year new laws are passed but the old laws are not repealed, so every year the minimum size of an entity that can comply with all of the rules increases. We've also seen, on the other side, lax antitrust enforcement as large corporations regularly buy out their competitors and use vertical integration and vendor lock-in to constrain upstarts.

That isn't a cultural problem at all, it's a regulatory problem. We need the rules to be easier on smaller entities and harder on larger ones. So that more of the decisions actually are in the hands of individuals rather than large institutions, and individuals are once again given the authority to choose to do the right thing instead of being constrained by perverse institutional incentives.

More to the point, the parent's complaint was about the culture of individualism in particular, not some generic cultural problems that you can shoehorn any arbitrary failing into just because it's possible to describe anything systemic as cultural.

I happen to be reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton right now and I think Washington was pretty disappointed in the people of his own time too. And the members of each faction thought the members of the other factions were "un-American" (though I don't think they had that term). The founding era was not a golden age, there's always been a battle for control of our culture.

I would agree that he had high standards, but he was mostly unhappy with some rank-and-file who were coerced into joining up, so I can hardly blame them. Other factions were not part of the whole at that point, so there was no back-stabbing there, to begin with.

Would he have been happy if he found out one of his immediate reports had been helping the French to get gunpowder in for a cut? Analogous to the wholesale tax dodging today.

Seems today "it's just business", back then he'd have been hung. Yes life back then wasn't all knights in shining armor, but now, good god.

Even if people didn't always comply to the code, there was a code and that code wasn't "every man for himself". They would have regarded that as insanity.

BTW I might read the Hamilton one next, I imagine it's Chernow you are reading, he has an engaging writing style.

Yes, Chernow. It is quite good and I think would give you a better sense for the extent of the factionalism in that time.

This is a straw man and does not actually argue the point or clarify the topic.

This is sarcasm.