It's all about me: the rise and rise of individualism

I THINK there has been a shift in the values and it has not necessarily been a transition for the better.

Foreign farm workers

I THINK there has been a shift in the values that inform modern consumer, social and political behaviour and it has not necessarily been a transition for the better.

What I am referring to is the rise of what might be termed individualism over collectivism. This is the idea that our world view has shifted from the need to play a minor part in a bigger society to the view society, and pretty much everything else, should revolve around us.

Not so much us as "me", to be precise. Frankly, I'm not that much interested in you; I'm far more interested in me. And that's the transition in thinking that has taken place over the past 30 years. The first half of the 20th century was inhabited by a strange race which, get this, valued bizarre concepts such as sacrifice and "going without". They saw virtue in subjugating individuality in order to serve a higher cause.

In fact, so deluded (by modern standards) were these early 20th-century people that, during the Great Depression, many took pride in not going on the "susso". The "susso" referred to sustenance or welfare payments, which were reserved for the destitute.

Today it's a different story. If you are not claiming everything you are entitled to, and more, then you are seen as a bit of a loser. And I suspect this is because today we believe we are entitled to a standard of living that is more or less disconnected to any notion of how hard we work.

But when, how and why did this shift in thinking take place? When did individual thinking shift from the virtue of sacrifice to the right to indulgence?

The susso-refusing households of the 1930s also navigated the war and rationing. Their attitude to children as newlyweds in the 1950s was different: they would talk of having "a bunch of kids", which meant five or six, not three. The point being that in the post-war era young couples did not see a marginal cost associated with having additional children.

And perhaps it is this thinking at the familial level that shaped the values of the broader society. Members of big families understand concepts such as deference, waiting your turn and hand-me-downs. (It is instructive that I feel I need to explain this concept: hand-me-down clothes refers to items of clothing that had been worn by an older sibling who grew out of them and was passed on to younger siblings.)

Perhaps the only way to survive truly global calamities and straitened times that followed was for individuals to pull together as a team. It is these team leaders, replete with a collectivist world view, who projected beyond the war and into middle age later in the century.

The transition from collectivism to individualism seems to have taken effect as the war-generation receded and as boomers generated their own families.

But during the 1980s boomers had reinvented the notion of the family: small families were preferred because extra kids diminished the household's standard of living and because it was difficult to manage multiple children when both partners worked.

Over the following 30 years households became increasingly addicted to the largesse afforded by two breadwinners and fewer kids. A child as one of six in a family does not expect that much attention. A child that is one of two in a family or that is an only child is reared to expect more attention. Social values shift as a consequence of this transition in thinking at the household level. No one in the pre-1950s aspired to change their circumstances. In fact, the term "working class" is no longer used.

The late 20th century delivered new terminology such as "middle Australia" to explain the expanding aspirational classes that dominate suburbia.

Here is a strange race that, get this, thinks its children are amazing individuals and which expects a standard of living that is not necessarily associated with how hard it works. And just as we can now see why the collectivist's world view prevailed before 1950, we can also see why an individualist's world view would prevail today.

It was easier to govern, to manage and to minister to the needs of a society that responded to deference. It is chaotic trying to do the same to a society in which everyone thinks they are special; that their view is important.

Governments used to think they had a mandate to make decisions in the long-term interests of the Australian nation and people. Not so today.

The electoral process merely confers temporal authority to manage daily business.

Any big or strategic decision must, by dent of the individualist's creed, take account of the views of "amazing individuals" who have an opinion on the subject.

Perhaps this is why I think there is a paucity of strategic vision by governments today.

If the electorate has shifted from a collectivist to an individualist world view, then how can long-term decisions be made?

No one questioned the federal government on the advisability of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, largely I suspect because this was regarded as the government's job. "They'd know,"

would have been the refrain. Politicians today have a tougher job to sell long-term vision partly because we all think that we know the way forward.

Or at the very least "that we should be consulted" and that if during the consultation process we do not agree with the outcome then that policy should be changed as a consequence.

Perhaps the lack of a national vision is not the fault of craven politicians. Perhaps it's because we have evolved into a nation of indulged and self-centred know-alls.

And I suspect that politicians privately think exactly this. But of course they cannot say what they really think lest they offend our delicate sensibilities.

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt's new book is The Big Tilt; [e-mail]; Linkedin/BernardSalt; Facebook/BernardSaltDemographer