Need Satisfaction and Group Conflict

Abstract

As a social philosophy, liberalism has consistently presupposed compe tition and conflict between divergent conceptions of the good. As a po litical philosophy, liberalism has consistently sought to domesticate competition and conflict by appeal to the rationality of citizens. While the way in which liberalism conceives of the rationality of subjects has differed (ranging from the Hobbesian conception of self-maximization to Kantian conceptions of autonomous self-determination), the core theme of the ability of citizens to recognize the necessity of agreed-upon framework principles of interaction links the various permutations of liberal political thought. Insofar as the rights of citizenship pertain to non-scarce goods such as speech or religious faith, liberal rights have been successful in reconciling different life projects to the collective de mands of social life. When the right in question is a property right to scarce goods, however, the concept has had the opposite implication— structuring and exacerbating conflict rather than resolving it. The conflict-generating capacities of the concept of liberal property rights are intensified when the parties to the conflict are collectivities and the good in question is a resource base that both groups claim as neces sary to their survival. Contemporary liberal theory has attempted to ad dress the power asymmetries that structure the relationship between dif ferent groups by altering the classic individualist interpretation of rights, hoping to replicate at the level of groups the success that the concept has had in forging unity in difference between individuals.1 I will argue,