Individualism vs authoritarianism

Governor Mitt Romney is a deep thinker when it comes to individualism vs authoritarianism.

Reasons to agree

1. I know as well that what you are doing here has impact well beyond my parochial interests in Massachusetts. I think we can all appreciate the broader context of what's involved. On a global basis, I'm convinced that you are seeing - as some have indicated in some recent journals and books -- the civilizations of the world weighing the values, which will be followed by their civilizations and by their peoples. On the one hand, we have the model of the US and other nations of the west -- which is model based upon individual entrepreneurship and individual decision-making and democracy. Everything related to the individual and the innovation and creativity of the individual, and saying the individual given full freedoms and incentives and opportunities for innovation, will create enormous innovation and potential for other people to live and grow from, and that this is the best way for building a civilization and an economy. There are other civilizations in our word that are convinced, that no, that's not the right model. That in fact you are much better under a more authoritarian structure where collectivity of purpose is defined as the objective and that this idea of individuality and innovation by individuals is actually quite counterproductive. And there is a debate between these differing views in the civilizations of the world today.
2. As we are on the stage and are going to be compared, as our approach which talks about individual liberties and individual contributions is compared with those who would say no collective approach is a more superior one, I want to be able to put our best foot forward and be able to show just exactly we can do. What MIT and what the Deshpande Center and with which other efforts like these are able to accomplish is to make sure the best of our thinking the very best of our innovation, the very best of our creativity, is shared in our community, and in our society and ultimately with the world. And that will, I believe, lead the world to be more likely to adopt a philosophy based upon individual liberties and individual rights and individual ascendancy.
3. I am convinced that as we think about investing in our future as a nation and as a civilization that we are faced with choices to make ourselves strong. There are some that are, if you will, 'classical Republicans' and I don't want to be political. But the classical Republican approach which is to say that what makes America so great is our great corporations and if we just clear the decks so corporations can be more successful and give them more money and make it easier for them to succeed while we'll do even better on the world stage. I don't happen to subscribe to that traditional Republican caricature. There are those who are on the Democratic side who are characterized as thinking what is the source of our greatness as a nation is our government and that by investing in more government we are going to be able to be more successful in fulfilling our mission. I subscribe instead to a philosophy that is neither classical Republican nor classical Democrat, but which is instead based upon a premise that we are great because of our people and that the source of America's greatness as a nation and as an economy has been the decision made over the previous decades to invest in people through education and through greater liberties and that by giving people greater and greater personal liberties and choices and by giving them the chance to learn and the chance to pursue their education we have created one of the great nations, one of the great civilizations in the history of the earth. That if we are looking for a future as a nation and as a civilization its foundation must be investing in our people, investing in their education, investing in sharing what they do and learn with the world and taking that as quickly and as aggressively to commercialization and to its application in the world as possible.