Value Structure of Societalism
In terms of age, societalism in its various forms is much older than individualism; there has literally always been some sort of justification for external control of people's actions. The societalism which affected society is an outgrowth of the rational socialist utopia described in Looking Backward. Yet in many ways it was different from traditional societalism, which tends to suggest complete subservience of the individual to the group. The people in Looking Backward were able to decide what to do with their lives, what work to choose and where to live; essentially they were able to control the greater part of their lives, although they had given up ultimate control over the economy. Charitably, one could call the value structure Bellamy described in Looking Backward as a form of modified individualism, but it was based on different (and ultimately incorrect) economic premises.
Individualism is based on the belief in the equality of human beings; to believe in the right to control one's life it is also necessary to believe in the premise, that each person has to decide the course of his or her life. This is how people are equal, in that each one knows what is best for himself or herself. At this point, societalism was also based on the equality of human beings; Bellamy clearly believed that all men and women should have the right to control their lives.
However, it was just a matter of time until Bellamy's societalism changed to a more traditional kind, based on the belief in the inequality of human beings. In traditional societalism, society should choose for people because of its belief that most people lack the ability to control their own lives; most people don't know what is best for themselves, and so they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions. Instead it is only a very few people who can actually choose, and these few people should decide for the majority, should be in control, because they are the only ones who know what is best for everyone. They have to take care everyone because people cannot take care of themselves.
This evolution back to the traditional, arrogant form of societalism was brought about by the influence of the social sciences. It happened because of a change in the basic view of human nature. Bellamy and the other rational socialists of his period believed that there was a human nature, which was inherently pure. To them, it was the environment which forced people away from their pure nature, causing them to do evil. Essentially, this is partial environmental determinism; there is a human nature, but the environment partly determines one's actions.
But slowly many social scientists came to believe in complete environmental determination, that the environment decides everything people do. The process started with the discovery of the industrial psychologists that people could be influenced by controlling their surroundings. Once the idea was established, this became a major field of research for the social sciences, studying the effects people's environment imposed on them. This was how the process started. The main catalyst, what really caused social scientists to make the leap to believing in complete environmental determinism was the intellectual's disease. It is a malaise which has afflicted intellectuals from the beginning of history, and it struck a telling blow in this situation as well. The social scientists believed that socialism was clearly the best system. Yet the vast majority of people in America did not agree with them. This could only be proof that the vast majority of people lacked the ability to decide what was best for themselves. That's the intellectual disease: "If you don't agree with me, it is because you cannot think for yourself. If you could truly choose, you would see things my way."
Eventually many people in the social sciences, and especially in sociology, came to the conclusion that human nature was for all practical purposes nonexistent. Instead of possessing the inherent ability to decide what was best for oneself, most people were simply a reflection of their surroundings, with their likes and dislikes, morals and beliefs absorbed unconsciously and uncontrollably from their environment. The social scientists had lost their faith in humanity (unlike our Founding Father's abiding faith in the inner good judgment of the common man).
The social scientists did not assume that everyone lacked the ability to decide: they still had quite a bit of faith in themselves. They believed that people in the social sciences, because of their training, were able to see the shaping effects of their surroundings and so overcome them; they could rise above their surroundings and so decide for themselves.
Those are the two parts of the inequality of human beings, the belief that some people could decide their lives but most could not. The majority of people were simply a reflection of their environment, and so were unable to actually choose the course of their lives; It was only a special few who were truly free and in control.
Not surprisingly, the arrogant social scientists felt that those few people who could decide, who were capable of choosing their lives, had a responsibility to make the decisions and care for those who could not. The social scientists, those few who were in control, had a responsibility to take care of the rest of mankind who lacked control. Noblesse oblige had returned. But instead of kings having a responsibility to take care of their subjects, it was now the social scientists' responsibility.
For the social scientists, societalism had become not so much a value structure, as a description of reality. Not only were people better off if they ceded control to society, this was the way it actually was. People did not control their actions, and were not responsible for themselves. Instead it was their surroundings which were actually responsible for choosing their actions.