Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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COLLECTIVISM

A view of society as a collectivity to which individuals are subordinated as part to the whole. Opposite of Catholic social doctrine that views society as bound in solidarity to the person, whom it seeks to develop. As practiced in Communist countries, the social collectivity determines all the manifestations of a human's life. Until the final realization of a classless society in which the individual is fully absorbed, the proletariat meanwhile represents the collective will.