Topic
Individualism
About: Individualism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5955 publications have been published within this topic receiving 214313 citations.
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Book•
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, Amartya Sen quotes the eighteenth century poet William Cowper on freedom: Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves howe'er contented, never know.
Abstract: In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen quotes the eighteenth century poet William Cowper on freedom: Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves howe'er contented, never know. Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence, millions of people living in rich and poor countries are still unfree. Even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedom and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism. The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its 'thousand charms' to the unfree citizens. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of social and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. Social institutions like markets, political parties, legislatures, the judiciary, and the media contribute to development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn sustained by social values. Values, institutions, development, and freedom are all closely interrelated, and Sen links them together in an elegant analytical framework. By asking "What is the relation between our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live as we would like?" and by incorporating individual freedom as a social commitment into his analysis, Sen allows economics once again, as it did in the time of Adam Smith, to address the social basis of individual well-being and freedom.
19,080 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how the terms individualism and collectivism are used by an evergrowing legion of users and no one is better equipped to understand how these terms are used.
Abstract: Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1996, Vol 41(6), 540–542. To truly follow cross-cultural psychology one must know how the terms, individualism and collectivism, are used by an ever-growing legion of users. According to the reviewer, no one is better equipped to
7,050 citations
TL;DR: The Calculus of Consents as mentioned in this paper analyzes the calculus of the rational individual when faced with questions of constitutional choice and examines the (choice) process extensively only with reference to the problem of decision-making rules.
Abstract: THE CALCULUS OF CONSENT was co-authored by Buchanan with Gordon Tullock, with whom Buchanan collaborated on many books and academic enterprises throughout their careers. As Robert D Tollison states in the foreword: (this book) is a radical departure from the way democracies conduct their business. The 'Calculus' is already a book for the ages. This classic work analyses the political organisation of a free society through the lens of the economic organisation of society. The authors acknowledge their unease as economists in analysing the political organisation, but they take the risk of forging into unfamiliar territory because they believe the benefits of their perspective will bear much fruit. As the authors state, their objective in this book is "to analyze the calculus of the rational individual when he is faced with questions of constitutional choice...We examine the (choice) process extensively only with reference to the problem of decision-making rules." The authors describe their approach as 'economic individualism'. They believe that economists have explored individual choice extensively in the market sector while social scientists have largely ignored the dynamics of individual decision-making in the dynamics of forming group action in the public sector. Written in the early 1960s, THE CALCULUS OF CONSENT has become a bulwark of the public choice movement for which James M Buchanan is so justly famous.
5,092 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: The state has lost its position of centrality in contemporary political theory and an emphasis on bargaining among conflicting interest have usurped ideas that embedded morality in institutions, such as the legal system and the corporation, as foundations for political identity as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The state has lost its position of centrality in contemporary political theory ideas of moral individualism and an emphasis on bargaining among conflicting interest have usurped ideas that embedded morality in institutions, such as the legal system and the corporation, as foundations for political identity. The authors propose a new theory of political behavior that re-invigorates the role of institutions - from laws and bureaucracy to rituals, symbols and ceremonies - as essential to understanding the modern political and economic systems that guide contemporary life.
4,898 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1902
TL;DR: Human Nature and the Social Order as discussed by the authors is a sociological treatise on American culture, where Cooley concludes that the social order cannot be imposed from outside human nature but that it arises from the self.
Abstract: This work remains a pioneer sociological treatise on American culture. By understanding the individual not as the product of society but as its mirror image, Cooley concludes that the social order cannot be imposed from outside human nature but that it arises from the self. Cooley stimulated pedagogical inquiry into the dynamics of society with the publication of Human Nature and the Social Order in 1902. Human Nature and the Social Order is something more than an admirable ethical treatise. It is also a classic work on the process of social communication as the "very stuff" of which the self is made.
4,656 citations