Wars of position that spread over vast areas of political life quickly become diffuse and hard to direct. As the Conservative Opposition saw it before 1979, the problem for government was how to change not only the balance of power between the state and competing institutions, but also the patterns of behaviour within markets. They did not believe that they needed institutions’ cooperation, or members’ acquiescence to do so. Neither did they expect heavy stresses or backsliding in the industrial arena, since competitors were less clearly identified as the Other and appeared to share most of the Conservative government’s assumptions about the national interest.