What is Politics? by Adrian Leftwich

Author:Adrian Leftwich [Leftwich, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780745698519
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-05-18T07:00:00+00:00

6 Some Problems

Some readers will already have noticed that there is a particular focus in the way in which we view politics when we see it as a matter of collective choice by rational actors. That focus is on the production of public goods, which are thought to be of benefit to all members of society or of a certain group. Politics, however, is as much about conflicts of interest as it is about co-operation. Social classes, ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, men and women are often in conflict for scarce resources. Looking at politics as a device for achieving public goods seems to ignore this important dimension (as Alex Callinicos argues in chapter 4 of this volume).

In some ways this is true, but too great a stress upon this aspect of politics can be misleading, because politics, as distinct from war or overt physical conflict (which are the other ways in which competition over scarce resources can be pursued), can only work if participants respect the collective institutions within which conflicts are conducted. Consider the case of two competing political parties in elections. Elections will work as institutions only so long as the parties are prepared to accept the result and abide by it. Indeed, politics works even better when political parties not only abide by the result but conduct their campaigns in fair ways, for example by not seeking to bribe election officials. It is usually in the interest of all parties to a political dispute to have a peaceful way of reconciling their differences, to avoid falling into a Hobbesian struggle.

Interestingly, even those political theories most obviously identified with conflict perspectives on society recognize that in social organization there is an element of common interest. Marx and Engels began The Communist Manifesto with the ringing claim that the history of hitherto existing society was the history of class struggle, but quickly went on to show that the bourgeoisie ‘had been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about’, accomplishing wonders ‘far surpassing the Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals’. In other words, the rule of the bourgeoisie raised the level of productive resources for all in society, so that ‘man was at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and relations with his kind’. What greater public good to humanity as a whole could have been given?

The second point to make about conflict is more mundane. To the extent to which there are different groups in society, each group may have an interest that is collective. So far we have largely considered goods that are public in the full sense of that term, that is to say that they benefit all, or nearly all, members of society. But we can apply the notion of a public good to sub-sets of society, so that a good can be public to them, but not to society at large. Honour among thieves is a public good for thieves, but it makes it more difficult for the authorities to catch thieves.

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