The concept of competitive individualism is central within a neoliberal system.

Foucault’s governmentality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XD85mfTbzk&feature=related

What individualism means and how it developed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK3eP9rh4So

Margaret Thatcher: Free Society Speech (1975)

Davies, B. and Bansel, P. (2007) Neoliberalism and education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20(3), 247-259.

Dill, David D. (2003) Allowing the Market to Rule: The Case of the United States. Higher Education Quarterly, 57(2), 136-157.

Doherty, Robert A. (2007) Education, neoliberalism and the consumer citizen: after the golden age of egalitarian reform. Critical Studies in Education, 48(2), 269-288.

Olssen, Mark and Peters, Michael A. (2005) Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: from the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy,  20(3), 313-345.