[lbo-talk] Foucault on Iran

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Yoshie:

a contradiction.  Both can be productive contradictions, however, for
liberty is a product of conflict between leaders and masses, (as well

[WS:] I think conflict alone is not enough, for this would lead to a
permanent war of all against all, and ultimate self-destruction of a
society.  I think liberty is a product of balance between conflict between
elites and non-elite interests groups (again there is no such thing as
"masses" only interest groups with varying degrees of power) and a
cooperation between these groups.  I think this is one of the most
insightful conclusions reached by Barrington Moore in _Social Origins of
Dictatorship and Democracy_.  

Obviously, there must be a certain level of conflict to prevent the elite
groups from totally dominating the public sphere, which is a pre-condition
for opening that sphere for non-elite groups.  But it is also necessary to
have a fair level of institutionalized cooperation that would reasonably
assure the parties in conflict that the terms of the settlement reached will
last into the future instead of being immediately broken as soon as the
parties lay down their arms.

One needs settlement and a certain degree of cooperation because, as the
British writer Thomas Hardy aptly observed, one can do anything with
bayonets except sit on them.  It is in everyone's, including elite's
interest to reach peaceful settlement.  However, any such settlement needs a
necessary prerequisite - institutionalized means of reaching and honoring an
agreement.

BTW, I think that missing the social prerequisites of reaching equilibrium
between conflicting interests is a fatal error of the neoclassical/laissez
faire/libertarian thinking.  Without those prerequisites, nothing would
prevent market actors from literally cutting the throats of their
competitors to maximize their own returns - a conclusion that neoclassicals
and libertarians would almost certainly reject, but have nothing in their
shop to explain why such 'cut-throat competition' is not a norm in the
markets.

Wojtek