The Obama slideshow on the life of Julia gives a sense of how social democracy can combine with a kind of atomized individualism. The real Julia would face a less generous government of course (Julia would be less influential member of the coalition until she got to be a quite old Julia), but one can see where the security of even a cold state that limits your choices might be preferable to being on your own in the midst of large government cutbacks, where there are no private sector alternatives in being and the mediating institutions that might have smoothed out change (spouses and extended families, religious institutions) are either absent or marginalized.
