Overemphasis on individual rights

The emphasis on the rights of the individual in the modern industrial era has generated a folklore in which care for the individual is often at the expense of the individual's obligations towards the wider context.

For example, large labour unions act to maintain the unemployment, sickness and retirement benefits of their members at levels that cannot be guaranteed by current and future production earnings.

1. Society has concentrated on individual rights to such a degree that it has devalued the sense of responsibility without which communities cannot exist. Rights have been used as trump cards to neutralize all other positions, making reasoned argument impossible.

1. Unbridled individualism
2. Structural failure of citizen participation
3. Overemphasis on self-sufficiency with respect to interdependence
4. Legal contract system reduced to individual needs

1. Misused ambulance service
2. Misuse of international forums
3. Misrepresentation of self-sufficiency as socially responsible
4. Indifference
5. Inconsiderate telephone use
6. Collective action problems

1. Limited local respect for regional and global legislation
2. Disengagement of citizens from community activities

1. Lack of individual development
2. Individual unfitness for survival

1. Official disregard for people as human beings
2. Lack of individualism
3. Ineffective protection of individual rights due to excessive court costs

1. Parochial national interests
2. Global complexity as a hindrance to leadership
3. Exclusion of opposing views
4. Breakdown in community security systems

1. Working from home
2. Stressing collective rights
3. Emphasizing individual rights

1. Rights
2. Overemphasis
3. Reduction