There is, no doubt, a need to secure pluralism, individual rights and
minorities against a possible majority tyranny. But the opposite danger
also exists, of thereby naturalizing a given set of 'liberties' and existing
rights, and at the same time buttressing many relations of inequality.
The search for 'guarantees' can lead to the very destruction of pluralist
democracy. Hence the importance of understanding that for democ-
racy to exist no social agent should be able to claim any mastery of the
foundation of society. The relation between social agents can only be
termed 'democratic' in so far as they accept the particularity and the
limitations of their claims - that is, only in so far as they recognize their
mutual relations as ones from which power is ineradicable. This is why
I have argued that the liberal evasion of the dimension of power is
fraught with risks for democratic politics.