Margaret Thatcher's claim, Society does not exist, only individuals and families, is NOT incompatible with "Anti-Individualism." In fact, with rare exceptions bourgeois thinkers have been opposed to "individualism" as an ethical standpoint. Consider, for example, John Kennedy's demand, "Ask not what America can do for you; ask what you can do for America." That proposition incorporates _both_ Thatcher's 'metaphysical' argument _and_ a rejection of an individualist ethic. Moreover, _individualism_ as an ethical position long predates the rise of capitalism. Thersites in the Iliad asserts an individualist morality and the only answer he receives is a severe beating by Odysseus: no one attempts to refute him in argument. I know of no pre-capitalist text that does not recognize "self-interest" as a possible principle of conduct, though most reject it, as do most bourgeois writers. Most bourgeois fiction incorporates both a spontaneous (or 'unconscious) acceptance of Thathcer's position _and_ a fierce anti-individualist ethic. One particularly moralistic commentator on PL speaks of the social relations that the individual must enter into. That is, for the bourgeois moralist condemnation of ethical individualism is grounded in acceptance of the "dot-like existence of the mere free worker in bourgeois society" as simple reality. All _moral_ rejections of capitalism are, then, grounded in an acceptance of the fundamental ideology of capitalism.
Carrol