I thought this essay was going to a useful place until it turned anti-democratic. I would agree that owners of businesses exhibit the traits attributed here to elected officials in a democracy. That, though, is more akin to the actions of monarchs, who would routinely sacrifice entire nations for an attempt at the immediate 'glorification' of their persons.

We do need to rethink individualism. We must turn from the self-centered version of it that is the bane of Western culture to an other-centered version of individualism.

The philosopher who gave the world self-centered individualism was John Locke (England: 1632 - 1704). He was the most influential philosopher of modernity. He effectively defined injustice as "being subject to the arbitrary will of" any other person(s) and ended up with the liberty of the individual as the predicate of justice: justice is liberty.

Really, though, that definition of injustice requires most immediately that we refrain from subjecting any other person(s) to our own arbitrary will. That is what other-centered individualism would be.

It would still maximize the liberty that co-existing individuals can share simultaneously. It still calls for a democratic political process, as the only just form that the political process (the process of effecting choices for the community as a whole) can take. It also has implications for the economy, but that is a whole other topic.