collectivize

American  

[kuh-lek-tuh-vahyz] / kəˈlɛk təˌvaɪz /

especially British, collectivise

verb (used with object)

collectivized, collectivizing

1. to organize (a people, industry, economy, etc.) according to the principles of collectivism.

---

collectivize British  

/ kəˈlɛktɪˌvaɪz /

verb

1. (tr) to organize according to the principles of collectivism

---

Other Word Forms

• collectivization
  noun
• decollectivize
  verb (used with object)

Etymology

Origin of collectivize

First recorded in 1890–95; collective + -ize

Explanation

To collectivize is to give up individual ownership of an industry and form a collaborative group instead. In the early 1930s, the Soviet Union collectivized almost all of its agricultural land into large-scale shared farms. Collectivize means "to form into a collective," a term that’s most often associated with communism. In the Soviet Union, it was Joseph Stalin who came up with the idea of collective farms as a way to boost productivity and free peasants from poverty. However, some historians see collectivization as one of the causes of the Soviet Union's terrible famines during the 1930s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

collectivize collectivized collectivizing

Running counter to the idolatry of the individual is the impulse to collectivize: for anointed individuals to bring their crews along with them, giving them credit, too, where it’s due.

From New York Times ● Oct. 13, 2021

“It’s one thing to think we can collectivize agriculture,” he said.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 26, 2020

The way to make more walruses and reindeer was to collectivize their herding and killing.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 15, 2019

Is doing so essential somehow for society’s psychological well-being, an attempt to collectivize experience increasingly diffused by the distractions of the internet?

From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2019

Back in 1931, when Stalin was ruthlessly liquidating the kulaks in his drive to collectivize the land, he gave one of his rare interviews to outsiders.

From Time Magazine Archive

“They are the materialization of an autonomous and collectivized claiming of the right to look.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2023

In her campaign kickoff speech, Ms. Williamson, 70, made no talk of exorcising the “dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred” in American politics or of calling New Zealand as her first act in office.

From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2023

“One of the most notable gains of the #MeToo movement is that it collectivized credibility. #MeToo offsets the doubt that hounds women in court and the court of public opinion,” she wrote.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2022

And because it needed to be this collectivized kind of decision, they couldn’t reach that kind of decision and they couldn’t make the repairs that needed to be done.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2021

Agriculture was almost completely collectivized, although production goals were not achieved, and the standard of living declined appreciably under Chervenkov's rule.

From Area Handbook for Bulgaria by Baluyut, Violeta D.

It may seem surprising that, of all cities, Houston — built on a go-it-alone oil business culture — decided to tackle homelessness by, in effect, collectivizing its homeless relief system.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 14, 2022

These people weren’t resisting having their property collectivized; they were committed to collectivizing property.

From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2015

“Earth” transcends its origins as an assignment to exalt the collectivizing of Soviet agriculture to become a mystical rumination on nature’s cycles of death and rebirth.

From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2012

Almost invariably, collectivizing or communalizing farms deadens initiative.

From Time Magazine Archive

The lesson from these cases, as well as from the tobacco settlement, is that that mysterious masked entity known as a corporation is in fact an ingenious device for collectivizing responsibility.

From Time Magazine Archive