A reply to Ramia Ramia's central point of criticism of my work on the new contractualism has it that I reject social protection and the importance of social protection in providing a restraint on the destructive effects of liberal market principles. He has constructed a straw person. I never designed my work on the new contractualism to make such an argument. Nor can it be argued that my work in this area unwittingly proposes that social protection is unnecessary once classical liberalism has been opened up to a more complex and more inclusive dynamic of individualization of the kind that I associate with the new contractualism. Most of the opposition to contemporary contractualism comes from those who champion either an older tradition of non-individualized collectivism or contemporary communitarianism. In this context, contemporaries who work within the intellectual traditions of social democracy and sociology need to think again when they are tempted to echo the communitarian rhetoric of condemnation of individualization, individualism and fragmentation. Are they going to recycle the old antinomy of individual and society, where, traditionally, social democracy and sociology have championed the latter term, or are they going to accept the ethical challenge of individuality and think about the social conditions of its possibility? If we are to use the metaphor of protection, we must ensure that we do so in a way that does not trap us within the old liberal equation of a need for protection with a lack of individuality. Historically, protection has been accompanied by the deprivation of freedom to those who have been seen to need it (see Yeatman, 1984). Welfare policy still operates in this way. The new contractualism thesis If we are to take individuality seriously, we have to take the rich tradition of liberal thought seriously because it gives us insight into the nature of individuality, although I want to argue this is individuality of a particular historical type. Liberalism centres on a particular conception of the human subject. This is an already fully formed individual who possesses mature contractual capacity and who exercises this capacity on behalf of his and (as it now is) her freedom to be both self-governing and self-reliant. This conception of the human subject is structured by its existence as an individualized unit of private property. It emphasizes the freedom of the individual to do as (s)he wills. Since individuals can function only with the assistance of others, liberalism has to admit this truth, but it does so in a way that sustains the private propertied atomism of the individual. It admits the dependence of the individual on others in two ways. First, by way of exchange with other individuals, where the nature of the exchange confirms each in his or her standing as private individuals free to do as they will. Second, by way of a private relationship of government or command over other individuals, where these others are positioned as subject to the will of the self-governing individual. Historically, these others have been wives, children and employees. Today, children are still positioned in this way especially if they are under the age of 12. Where the first type of relationship of the liberal subject -- the reciprocity of an exchange relationship -- offers recognition to the individuality of those party to it, the second type of relationship of the liberal subject is predicated on a profound inequality. The individuality of the patrimonial head of the unit concerned, whether it is a family or firm, swallows up that of his dependants. They are to have no individuality of their own for the duration of their dependence on his government of them. As Carole Pateman (1979) puts it in her account of the liberal theory of obligation, these dependants are so positioned that they are compelled to exchange their obedience for the patrimonial individual's protection of them. …