| | It is a cliche that the leopard does not change its spots. To that, I add, nor does a zebra change its stripes. Some animals are social. Others are not. Another cliche is that birds of a feather flock together. However, eagles do not flock. In fact, few hunters form strong social groups. Some, such as wolves, do form social groups. Even among social species, some statistically significant number of individuals moves from one gene pool to another. This prevents in-breeding, and so it is rewarded by evolution.
http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/~barrylab/classes/animal_behavior/MALESS.HTM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55070-2002Feb22?language=printer
http://www.academy.umd.edu/ILA/Publications/Proceedings/1999/selected%20abstracts.pdf
Among humans, we have alphas (leaders), betas (followers) and gammas (extroverted and norm-questioning.) Nominal ideology is irrelevant. At a Libertarian Party convention, you will find delegates collected by state, arrayed in alphabetical order, hooting and calling in concert. Among Objectivists, many so-called "individualists" identify the leaders of the movement and follow them, buying their books, and attending their lectures, more to be a part of something bigger than themselves than to edify their own lives.
Eric Hoffer may have been only half-right when he identified the True Believer. The True Believer is more than a mere follower. The truest believers never leave the "meme pool." As a "seeker" the True Believer moves from one "meme pool" to another, cross-fertilizing each with inputs that can prevent cognitive in-breeding.
If you read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and felt the emotion that Ayn Rand called "of course" then you know the feeling that I experienced reading Harry Browne's How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.
When Lindsay Perigo launched the precursor to Rebirth of Reason, Sense of Life Objectivists, he called for people who would change the world. Yet, the message in HIFFUW is that you can only control your own life. If you try to change the world, your chances for success are minimal. By analogy, governmentalist programs like welfare and industrial policy always achieve only the direct opposite of their stated goals. If your goal is to change the world, you only compete with the other reformers for the attention of followers. Yet, the world does change. The reason why it changes is exactly because those who perceive new truths attract followers.
The inventors, however, are seldom good leaders. Of the many examples, perhaps the most comical and harmless is that of Frank Lloyd Wright who actually sat himself on a dais for collective dinners that were mandatory rituals for his students. (He suffered disappointment in never finding among them anyone as talented as he was at their age. He apparently never saw the connection -- or lack of one -- between imitating and creating.) He could think of nothing better to enhance communality because he really was not an effective leader. To be a good leader, you have to be a good follower, and Wright was an innovator.
Edison and Ford were autocrats because they knew no other way to deal with people. A century later, the corporations they founded continue, maintained, nurtured, and furthered by people who engage in empathetic listening, who share feelings, who seek consensus before acting, who go along to get along.
If you want to see the reality of a society of individuals, compare the United States of America to any other nation. The "constitution" may or may not be bolstered with a "bill of rights." Political window dressing is irrelevant. In America, the squeeky wheel gets the grease. The reality of most other societies is that -- as the Japanese say it -- the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Japan has virtually zero immigration, being 95% Japanese and 5% Korean. Immigrants are socially disruptive. How those disruptions play out depends on the society being unbalanced. In France, immigrants riot to demand more state benefits. In America, immigrants parade for the privilege of working.
In France, immigrants riot to demand that the government do more. In America, immigrants petition the government to do less. Statistically speaking, Americans are strongly individualistic. The question is whether we can maintain that component.
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