ABSTRACT
In order to support the communitarian case against liberalism this chapter develops further Sartre's criticisms of the liberal conception of community. The main aim is to provide something that is missing from communitarianism, namely, a view of why and how communities are formed and sustained and in particular a view of how they can be formed if, as communitarians charge, the overly individualistic liberal view of society militates against the formation of communal attachments. Two questions emerge. How can the individual move from the collective state of seriality into the communal state of the group? Why might he wish to do so? Bakunin confirms that collectivism can come about only through the pressure of circumstances, not by imposition from above but by a free spontaneous movement from below. Communitarians are critical of the laissez-faire view of the individual pursuing his independent way.
