He now offers to creatively find ways to do without big government while still making it unnecessary for people to fend. If to fend is to attempt to manage without assistance, then it has little to do with what the real opponents of big government want. After all, government isn't the only source of assistance. People like Clinton imagine that the unfettered marketplace is where people have to fend for themselves. It sounds more like assistance and cooperation.
Competition is entailed by cooperation.
It is what you get when we're free to decide with whom we will cooperate. Since man is a social animal, I'll bet there never was a time when individuals fended for themselves. They always lived in groups and cooperated through exchange. The conjured-up era of fending is simply part of the anticapitalist folklore designed to make us fear liberty and look to the state for protection. That's what Clinton was counting on in his speech.