Individualistic

Instead of the group being primary, whether a family, caste or community, the individ­ual becomes a microcosm of the society as a whole, with individu­al rights and duties. He or she becomes a legal, political, religious and economic entity in his or her own right, not merely insofar as he or she is a member of a wider group. This atomistic system is one where wider ties of blood and territory are weak and integration is through money, citizen­ship, paper, law and sentiment. People, in Marx’s ironic words, have been ‘set free’, not only in relation to the market, but also in relation to God and the State.