Abstract

There are at least two different ways of coping with struggles: one is to eliminate them—this is the way that Plato, Hegel, Marx and many others chose—and the other is to institutionalize them—this is Tocqueville's democratic way. I first outline the main elements of Hegel's approach, with a specific focus on the Phenomenology of Spirit. My aim is to emphasize that, for Hegel, the goal of political philosophy must be a reconciled polis, which can happen only if and when the history-long struggle between masters and slaves has ended. I then turn to Tocqueville's Of Democracy in America, which was published about thirty years after Hegel's Phenomenology. Tocqueville is also aware of struggles between masters and slaves, but he prefers embracing democracy as a means of domesticating, rather than eliminating once and for all, political strife