Individualism vs. Collectivism

One country that practices Individualism is The United States of America. Individualism is the value of an individual more than the value of a group. A way that this is practiced is through self owned businesses. In the United States, we believe that it is ok for anyone to create their own business and run it themselves or with a self hired staff. I think that it is good to practice Individualism because it teaches leadership skills and how to be a hard worker without always depending on other people.

One country that practices Collectivism is Russia. Collectivism is valuing a group more than an individual. One way that Russia practices this is through their farming. Farm land in Russia is typically owned by groups of people and is farmed by a group. The group works together to get the job done and they all split the money. I personally think that Collectivism can be very bad because they put no value on the individual. One person can not be honored for their hard work. If a group of 3 people has 2 lazy people and 1 hard working person that gets all the work done, the whole group could be praised and rewarded. The one person who did the work would get no special recognition. The only way that this idea could be good is learning how to work well with a group. You can also split the work load to get the job done faster.

I believe that Individualism is better than Collectivism because you have to learn to value yourself before you start learning to value others. If you don't understand all the hard work that has to be put into finishing the task, you can't praise any group of people for splitting the work and making the load easier.