A Google Search: "Who first decided that individual success was more important than communal success?"

Dateline: 4:35pm Sunday, 2 Novenber, 2025, Melbourne, Australia.

I queried Google with this deliberately simplistic question...

who first decided that individual success was more important than communal success?

Google's AI gave this response...

There is no single individual who definitively "decided" that individual success was more important than communal success, as this idea evolved gradually through philosophical, political, and economic thought over centuries. The emphasis on individualism as a central value became prominent in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly through thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith, who championed individual rights and self-interest as foundational to societal progress. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the early 1800s that American society was deeply fascinated with individualism and entrepreneurship, recognizing both its potential for greatness and its risks to the common good.
While individualism gained traction as a dominant ideology, it has long been debated in contrast to collectivist values, with philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau warning that excessive focus on individual distinction could corrupt moral character and civic virtue.
The tension between individual and communal success remains a central theme in political philosophy, with thinkers like J.S. Mill advocating for a balance where individual freedom contributes to the common good.

When you see it summed up so simplistically, and the conclusion you reach is "Be more Elon," you begin to realise there really are only 2 kinds of people, the selfish and the communal. Of course, we, the communal, fail to strongly resist the selfish, we support all endeavour, even though the endeavours of the individualists are to enslave and exploit everybody. Tearing down "the successful" is counter to community freedom yet, it's also counter to community, because the individualist sees themselves as somehow "better" than the community, which are solely, in the eyes of the individualist, a resource to exploit, rather than the nest in which they flourished and owe any success to.

More on this later.