The point of socialism is to subordinate man to nothing–or nothingness. By appealing to the authority of the State to rule on behalf of the “common good”, which is the collective that trumps the individual, socialism makes the rank absence of Self the objective. Thus, it is necessarily, inexorably, about the categorical elimination–not limitation– of opportunity.

That’s socialism, specifically. However, I would add the following in regards to all and any collectivist ideologies, and they are legion; and they all share in common the idea of “rule by authority”. And it is this, I submit, that at root defines collectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics, and which serves as the fulcrum of collectivism’s necessary tyranny, and general loathing of humanity:

An appeal to rule according to ANY amount of authority must inevitably subordinate the entirety of man to this authority.  This is because man’s Self, metaphysically speaking (metaphysics being the ontological primary–or the singularity from which all of a thing is derived) is absolute, and therefore any sanction of the Self by appealing to the right of authority to define Self for Self, must therefore also be absolute.

This raises an interesting (if not horrifying) contradiction. Man, himself, then, becomes absolutely irrelevant–and thus the authority claimed over him is rendered perfectly meaningless. And this is why all attempts to implement authority structures as a means of socially organizing human beings eventually manifest as rank and abject despotisms. Since man relies upon reason and rational consistency for his very survival, attempts to practically apply contradictions always fail…and in the process torment and murder millions.