In a collectivist society, government is much stronger and more powerful. The collective must make a single decision, therefore all decisions are made by the body which claims to represent the people - ie the government. The individual has no freedom - decisions are made in the interests of the collective, not the individual.

It should come as little surprise that governments like to create situations in which collectivism is necessary - like a war.

In recent years, governments (and supporters of powerful government) have created a War on Poverty, a War on Drugs, and War on Terror. These are wars which clearly will never end (poverty, drugs and terrorists will remain) - they are not designed to end. They are merely designed to keep us in a permanent state of warfare, in which the rights of the individual can be violated in the interests of the collective good - fighting the war.

Wars should be scary to governments. Wars involve regime change. Governments normally only start wars when

• they are either sure of a decisive victory (like China's annexation of Tibet in 1951);
• when they are backed into a corner and desperate (like Argentina's annexation of the Falklands in 1982); or
• when it is a war which can never be won or lost, but which can be 'fought' in perpetuity (like the war on Poverty, Drugs, Terror etc)

See

• War
• X Crisis