Alexander Meiklejohn’s argument in Education Between Two Worlds, 1942, is captured by his distinction between an agreement and a bargain. 1,
The former goes to an organic conception of society, unified by fellowship, the latter to an inorganic conception, divided and comprised by eternally competing interest groups. 2,
Mutuality of interests inform agreements. Competing interests comprise bargains, each trying for maximum advantage at the expense of the other. 3,
For Meiklejohn a football team can exemplify organic unity. What’s best for the team subsumes all individual interests. All interests are moulded into serving a singular purpose, the best team. 4,
Plaguing Meiklejohn’s argument is what his example glaringly misses, namely, one team playing another team. That, competition, is a football team’s reason to be. Football games are in his terms analogous to bargains. Each team tries to win, to beat, nay hammer, its opponent. 5,
Fair competition is fundamental to any liberal regime, whether democratic, republican or even social democratic. It coexists with the need for social cohesion in other national spheres, the most fundamental being national acceptance and adherence to law. 6,
And so Meiklejohn’s argument collapses in his organic inorganic binary, it must be one or the other. There are theories of society without competing interests, but that is inconceivable as a practical reality. 7/7
