The ideologies underpinning public/private partnerships (PPPs) have been much contested in theory, but what does promulgating a social partnership mean in practice? This qualitative research study has been "critiquing" a construct of "ecologies of learning" or "capacities of capital" for social partnerships between industry, vocational education and training (VET) and a regional community. This paper critiques one of these ecologies by exploring the discourses of social capital which present challenges for small business/community partnerships in practice. It argues that there is a need to question the impact of neoliberalism on social partnerships with VET and how the entities of industry: "fortress enterprise", the community: "fortress Australia", and governance: "terra publica" are positioned within this predominant economic rationalist discourse. It concludes that policies for "globalising neoliberalism" can be capacity reducing for promulgating social partnerships with VET at the local level.