The bucket brigade and the fire buckets

In contemporary culture the individual rules. It is not uncommon to disadvantage a whole group to give advantage to a solitary person or a single issue. In short we, Westerners, value the individual over the corporate. This has validity from time to time. It also has significant drawbacks. Importantly, it has not always been this way.  

The "bucket brigade" is an metaphor of the spirit of the 18th and early 19th century Moravians. The ruling and guiding concept for them, at that point in time, was the group first -  the individual being subordinated to it. 

Every building in Salem, residential and public, was required to have fire buckets. When the inevitable fire alarm was sounded residents, with buckets in hand, ran toward the fire. A line would be formed - and buckets of water would be passed up toward the flames. There is no room here for individuality. Teamwork rules. 

It is estimated that Salem could produce a brigade of up to fifty buckets. Thus when the calamity subsided each took back to the home or business his buckets. But with fifty they needed to be marked with the owner's identity.