Be An Individual - society does not exist apart from the sum of its comprising members (individual..

#Voluntaryism #IndividualOverCollective

Society is a collection, an abstraction of multiple individuals. It cannot be harmed if none of its component parts are harmed; a mere sum of individuals does not confer some special status upon the abstraction.

"Modern collectivists . . . see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members." ~Ayn Rand

"society does not exist apart from the sum of its comprising members (individuals)."

Anarchism can only be individualist since an individualist the society operates entirely from within the framework of a neutral stance, and with no coercive group rights that could only exist as a result of collective action. Therefore, the individual is able to exercise their self ownership, not only to the extent of being responsible for their own actions, but being free and in charge of their own actions and the products of their own material autonomy as well, and free to make any decisions that they like, as long as they aren't infringing on the rights of other individuals.

Individualism isn't about fucking people over for your own self interest and not caring about anyone else. It's about individual rights, self ownership and realizing that for the individual to be free, the individual must be autonomous, able to associate or disassociate in any manner that they can, and reserve the right to stop others from coercing them. As I've demonstrated, not only is anarchism perfectly compatible with individualism, but anarchism is basically the end result of applying individualism consistently since political authority is the ultimate enemy to individual rights and only exist as an obstruction to the individual self ownership, and this is in direct contrast with collectivism which can only exist as a result of using political authority to oppress individual self ownership.