Against Community attempts to the explore the political rhetoric of "community" with reference to the politics of the United Kingdom in the era of neoliberalism. Specifically, what is the material and ideological function of discourses around community? How have these shifted over time in the politics of the mainstream of the United Kingdom - from the birth of neoliberal politics in the late 1970s, to the Blairite highpoint of the late 1990s to the Serco-sponsored austerity jamboree of Cameron's "big society"? Why the attraction of community so strong that the likely incoming Labour government feel the need to endorse it in the concept of "one nation"?
Against Community begins by exploring the ideas of community within the early German neoliberal theorists, showing community to be a central concern of the "shock doctrine" reconstruction of post-World War II Germany. Even as early as the later 1940s and 1950s neoliberal reform was accompanied by rhetoric of "community". This idea