'Modern Liberals Have Abandoned Individualism and Embraced Collectivism.' Discuss

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'Modern liberals have abandoned individualism and embraced collectivism.' Discuss The core values of liberalism are individualism, rationalism, freedom, justice and toleration. The liberal belief that human beings are, first and foremost, individuals, endowed with reason, implies that each individual should enjoy the maximum possible freedom consistent with a like freedom for all. However, although individuals are 'born equal' in the sense that they are of equal moral worth and should enjoy formal equality and equal opportunities, liberals generally stress that they should be rewarded according to their differing levels of talent or willingness to work and therefore favor the principle of meritocracy. Modern liberalism is a development within liberal ideology that has revised some of the ideas of classical liberalism. Some classical liberals argue that modern liberalism has abandoned individualism, which is the belief that everyone needs to look after and support themselves, and embraced collectivism, which is a value or belief where you think of society first and what societies needs are causing you to make sacrifices for the benefit of society as a whole instead of thinking only of yourself, to the extent that it has abandoned a belief in the free market and the minimal state and endorsed economic and social intervention. In this essay it will be assessed whether modern liberalism has in fact parted from individualism or if they have merely taken an alternative route in order to achieve their main long term core goal. Conservatives view human nature pessimistically in at least three senses. First, human beings are limited, dependent and security-seeking creatures; second, they are morally corrupt, tainted by selfishness, greed and a thirst for power; third, human rationality is unable to cope with the infinite complexity of the world. The belief that society
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