In its true meaning, the term refers to national systems for the centralized control of the economy, especially systems like communism and fascism. Apparently, Ayn Rand and many Libertarians use it in a very broad sense, and apply it far beyond the central management of industry. But the moral base of true collectivism is not altruism, but despotism. It is an attempt to exercise central control over an economy, and hence a whole people. But the term is broadened in practice and application to include any regulation of free enterprise, any economic control that a free people might deem necessary for the general good.
Collectivism thus becomes a flexible term to be used for purposes of propaganda.
If used merely as an epithet in opposition to almost any kind of collective action, it is strongly adverse to the thought of Jefferson, who viewed the collective as the source of all authority in the nation. It becomes another propagand tool in the war against government of the people. The meaning of a nation of equal rights for Rand is a nation of equal traders. But the Trader is only involved in economic exchange. Here, then, is the true symbol of alienated modern man, off to himself, and only dealing with others, not as human beings with a full range of concerns, but as entities engaged in economic exchange.