Private property. Individual identity and rights. Nation state democracy. These are the foundations of most modern liberal democracies. Yet they rest on fundamentally monist atomist foundations. Individuals are the atoms; the nation state is the whole that connects them. Every citizen is seen as equal and exchangeable in the eyes of the whole, rather than part of a network of relationships that forms the fabric of society and in which any state is just one social grouping. State institutions see direct, unmediated relationships to free and equal individuals, though in some cases federal and other subsidiary (e.g. city, religious or family) institutions intercede. Three foundational institutions of modern social organization represent this structure most sharply: property, identity and voting. We will illustrate how this works in each context and then turn to the ways that ⿻ social science has challenged and offers ways past the limits of atomist monism.