[lbo-talk] Foucault on Iran

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/1/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> 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.

In post-colonial and post-neo-colonial populist states such as Iran,
as well as socialist states such as Cuba, the institutionalized means
of reaching and honoring an agreement between leaders and masses have
often taken the form of corporatism within the framework of illiberal
democracy and largely state-owned economy, and in European social
democratic states, they have generally taken the form of
neo-corporatism within the framework of liberal democracy and largely
market economy.  The former, IMHO, have suffered more from an
insufficient level of productive conflict in public than from an
insufficient level of development of institutions that would allow
bargaining between leaders and masses.

In the USA in the past, there were much conflict and few
institutionalized means of reaching and honoring an agreement, and in
the USA today, there are little conflict and few institutionalized
means of reaching and honoring an agreement, which is why politics is
living dead here.
-- 
Yoshie
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