Collectivist Speak

Many people speak as if collectives were biological organisms who think and act like individuals

Economist (1974 Nobel laureate) and political philosopher F. A. Hayek devoted a chapter of his latest book, The Fatal Conceit, to “Our Poisoned Language.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s primitive “noble savage,” Hayek notes, “is not solitary, and his instinct is collectivist.” Our current language, he argues, is often biased toward such primitive ways of looking at the world. Consider, for instance, the routine personification of society. Collective utility “exists as little as a collective mind.”

In an otherwise interesting report, the Washington Post gives another example, which is not quite as innocuous as it looks (Ellen Francis and Michael Birnbaum, “Trump Team Bashed Europe for a Year. Now He Wants Support in War on Iran,” March 7, 2026):

“Trump was so furious with Spain that he threatened to “embargo” the country, although singling out Spain would be tricky, since the 27-nation European Union trades as a bloc.”

(The Financial Times had previously reported that “Trump ordered his administration to ‘cut off’ all trade ties with Spain in retaliation for the country’s refusal to let the US use two jointly operated Spanish military bases to attack Iran.”)

The Washington Post’s explanation that “the 27-nation European Union trades as a bloc” is a literally meaningless metaphor that is characteristic of Collectivist Speak. The EU does not, and could not, trade as a bloc. Each European individual, company or other intermediary trades separately with a similar counterpart outside the EU territory. At least, such is the case in a free society. What acts as a bloc are the EU political authorities when they decide to tax, regulate, or ban imports or exports of the residents of the EU territory. One simple proof is that smugglers, large and small, who are traders resisting the political constraints imposed on them, exist in Europe as elsewhere.

I agree that this is not the most consequential or most dangerous example of the Collectivist Speak we hear every day around us. But the fact that it will go unnoticed by most people illustrates how ingrained this way of speaking and thinking is. “So long as we speak in language based in erroneous theory, we generate and perpetuate error,” wrote Hayek.