Chapter XX Conflict Theories in Sociology

The concept of social conflict has already been introduced to the reader. In the chapter on Individualistic Social Thought the prolonged struggle between individual rights and genuine social control was analyzed. Malthus described the conflict between population and the means of subsistence. Comte insisted that man is not naturally a social being. Hence this unsocial nature of mankind is a fruitful source of human conflict. Marx pictured the class struggle; and Darwin elaborated the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

The slightest grasp of social thought reveals the fact that human association is characterized at times by deep-seated and subtle conflicts; and at other times by a fundamental co-operative spirit. Some sociological writers have seen only or chiefly the conflicts of life; others have sought out the co-operative activities; still others have tried to discover the relationships between conflict and co-operation in societal development. This chapter will deal with the concept of social conflict, while the next chapter will be centered on the ideal of social co-operation and upon the relationship of conflict to co-operation in group processes.

One of the outstanding believers in the theory that conflict dominates societal life was Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1910). His system of thought begins with the assertion that primitive hordes were the original units of society. Gumplowicz dissented from Herbert Spencer’s belief in the individual as the original societary unit, although he accepted the determinism that is inherent in Spencer’s theory of evolution. Gumplowicz also repudiated Comte’s belief in social amelioration through prevision, but subscribed to Comte’s positivism.

According to Gumplowicz, society began with a large number of primitive groups, which were self-sustaining and self-conscious units. Each one of these hordes was a warring group, possessing an instinctive hatred of all other hordes.XX-1 As these hordes increased in size, the general food supply failed to meet the needs. Consequently, inter-group struggle resulted and the members of the weaker hordes were either destroyed or enslaved. The existence of slaves led to situations of intra-group inequality, which in turn created problems involving justice and injustice.

As a result of continual conflicts between groups, there are frequent changes taking place in their personnel. The vanquished are continually being absorbed by victorious groups. In a given successful group two classes are at once established, namely, the victors and the vanquished. Classes are thus continually arising out of new juxtapositions of heterogeneous racial elements.XX-2

It was in an intense form of group self-interest that Gumplowicz found the mainspring of social progress. This self-interest leads to an exaggerated group appraisement, a strong degree of group unity, a state of warfare between groups—and perhaps progress. Basic to this group self-interest, there are the material needs of the members of the group; the economic desires and the occupational interests; and the moral and spiritual tendencies. The group is bound together by various factors, such as a common social life, a common language, religion, and culture.

Gumplowicz advocated a theory of potential race equality. He argued against innate racial superiority and racial inferiority. He doubted the existence of any pure races. Each race is a compound of other races, and hence races are potentially similar in fundamental respects. National progress, therefore, holds no connection with race purity.

Gumplowicz minimized the importance of the individual. Society rules. Centuries of traditions dominate. The thoughts of the individual are almost, if not entirely, a mere reflection of the social environment. The group develops group pride or group disloyalty in the minds of its members. The distinguished leader is largely the man who expresses the will of the group during the group crisis. Gumplowicz makes only a brief reference to the process of interaction between the individual and the group.XX-3 An underlying theory of natural determinism vitiates much of Gumplowicz’s ideas concerning the individual.

Inasmuch as society, like individuals, passes through a cycle of growth and decay, subject to unchangeable natural and societary laws, there is no justification for individual interference with social processes. In fact, this theory led Gumplowicz into pessimistic conclusions concerning life. He failed to see that societal life is not necessarily a series of hopeless cyclical conflicts, and that social processes are becoming increasingly subject to human control—for good or ill. He did not appreciate the fact that groups are not subject to laws of cyclical growth and decay after the manner of individuals. Hence, his conflict theory of societal life ended in confusion and pessimism.

A reference was made in Chapter XI to the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). This German philosopher developed the idea of social conflict, basing it on the concept of the “will to power.” Leaders desire power. They enjoy to exercise power and they thrive under that exercise. Jealousy of the leaders arises. The weaker members of society join together against the possessors of power. They develop a will to power, but of a weaker type than that of the leaders. Conflicts ensue between the will to power of the superior and the will to power of the inferior.

The superior and the inferior types each possess a distinctive code of morality.XX-4 The supermen develop a harsh and rigorous attitude toward themselves and others. They gird and prepare themselves for the crises of life. They strive to augment their power. They become self-contained. They take pride in crushing weakness and in deifying strength. Their morality stresses those factors in life which create power. They feel a condescending pity for the weak. They experience no sense of responsibility for the inferior classes. Since supermen are the supreme goal of nature, supermen feel that all persons and things should contribute to increasing the power of supermen.XX-5 It is a waste of energy for supermen to give their lives in behalf of inferior persons. They are interested only in the welfare of other supermen.

The morality of the inferior is of a type which furthers weakness. It accents sympathy. It emphasizes gregariousness. The inferior create a slavish, cringing, meek morality. They sacrifice themselves readily and humbly in behalf of others who may be inferior to themselves.

Nietzsche believed in a eugenics program. He declared that marriages should be arranged with a view to producing supermen. Nietzsche’s deterministic view of natural evolution led him to believe, however, that equality of privileges is unattainable. He opposed democracy because its theory of equal opportunities contradicts the tendencies of nature. He was no socialist. He asserted that an aristocracy of power is the only true goal for society. He carried forward the ruthless biological laws of tooth and fang into his conception of the highest types of civilization.

Moreover, the superman is a biological mutant. He appears sporadically. At this point Nietzsche’s inconsistency becomes obvious. For example, if geniuses appear sporadically and without reference to biological laws, why attempt to arrange marriages so as to produce supermen? To get himself out of the dilemma, Nietzsche postulated cyclical returns of supermen and lost his bearings in trying to interpret an endless circular movement in social evolution, endlessly repeating itself. In an applied form Nietzsche’s philosophy has appeared in German political life, but to the defeat of Germany.

In starting points, Nietzsche and Gumplowicz were widely different. Nietzsche began with an apotheosis of the man of power and extolled the achievements of supermen. Gumplowicz had little place for the individual, even for the most powerful. Both sets of theories ended in a deterministic philosophy of individual and social despair.

An unusually fundamental delineation of social conflict has been advanced by Simon N. Patten in his Theory of Social Forces.XX-6 Human society is the product largely of a pain economy in which the requisites for survival are determined “by the enemies and pains to be avoided.” In a like manner a pain morality and a pain religion develop. The purpose of the pain morality is “to keep persons from committing acts and putting themselves in situations which lead to destruction.” The pain religion, likewise, aims to invoke the aid of higher powers in the human conflict with enemies and death. The social forces in a pain economy have been builded up in the form of sets of ideals, instincts, and habits.

Society, however, is now in a transition stage—entering a pleasure economy. A large number of the sources of pain have been eliminated through the inventive and administrative phases of civilization. Dangerous beasts and reptiles, barbarous invasions, and superstitious interpretations are uncommon among the advanced human groups.

No nation, unfortunately, has been able to live under a pleasure economy. Its members have not built up sets of instincts, habits, and ideals that withstand the effects of a pleasure economy. Consequently, individuals and nations have fallen into lethargy, vice, and decay. The enemies in a pleasure economy are found within the individual; these are as yet unconquered under the allurements of a pleasure environment. In discussing the conflicts between these habits and ideals, Dr. Patten may err in implying that the race once was not in a pain economy and hence did not originally develop out of such an environment, but he nevertheless has analyzed an important societal fact in his pain-pleasure transition concept.

Another type of conflict theory of society is advanced by Thomas Nixon Carver. Professor Carver begins his analysis with a discussion of the conflict of human interests. Originally all conflicts were settled on the basis of might. But conflicts between persons who are beginning to think, sometimes lead one or each of the contending parties to a consideration of adjusting the conflict by other than physical strife. At this point the concept of justice begins to take form.

Justice, according to Dr. Carver, is “that system of adjusting conflicting interests which makes the group strong and progressive.”XX-7 Virtue and strength are pronounced identical, and strength is defined “according to its ability to make itself universal.”

Conflict arises out of scarcity. Where two men want the same thing, conflict ensues. It is this antagonism of interests which produces moral problems and furnishes a basis of determining justice and injustice. One reason for the lack of supply of things which people seek is that in society human wants are unduly expended. If wants could be kept low and production high, an adaptation of people to things would take place which would greatly lessen conflict.

Conflicts take place in three different fields: (1) between man and nature, (2) between man and man, and (3) between the different interests of the same man.XX-8 If there were no such conflicts, there would be no moral problems. The result would be paradise.

The institutions of property, the family, and the state have developed out of antagonism of interests, which in turn, as has been said, is the result of scarcity. If things were not scarce, no one would think of claiming property in anything. In a similar way the kinship group becomes desirous of possessing property and hence acquires unity. In asserting that the unifying principle in the family is an economic one, Dr. Carver espouses a theory of economic determinism. In fact, he holds that “the economic problem is the fundamental one, out of which all other social and moral problems have grown.”XX-9

Dr. Carver somewhat softens his rigorous social theories when he admits that there may be a few people in the world whose feeling of humanity is strong enough to overbalance an antagonism of interests and to lead them to treat the world as a normal individual treats his family.XX-10 A world of such people would make a world of communism. But such a world is unthinkable, because world-loving people are social aberrations. The individual whose altruism is such that he gladly gives his body to a tiger, is not helping to transform the world into a world of saints but into a world of tigers.XX-11 Extreme forms of benevolence and meekness constitute the very food upon which selfishness fattens.XX-12

Professor Carver, therefore, points out two sources of conflict, namely, scarcity of desirable things and self-centered appreciation. These two bases of conflict are fundamentally natural and normal. Conflicts appear, however, in a great variety of forms. This classification of the methods of struggling for existence is fourfold.XX-13

(1) There is a group of conflicts which are primarily destructive, such as war, robbery, dueling, sabotage, brawling. These conflicts are all crude, primitive, brutal. They represent man at his lowest ebb. They are militant in character, depending upon the individual’s power to destroy, to harm, or to inflict pain and injury.XX-14

(2) Deceptive conflicts are of an order slightly higher than the militant. They include thieving, swindling, adulteration of goods, false advertising. They imply a greater degree of intelligence than the purely destructive types of conflict.

(3) Another form of conflict is persuasive in character, for example, political, erotic, commercial, and legal conflicts. Political competition includes seeking governmental appointments, running for office, campaigning for a political party. Erotic conflicts are in the main different forms of courtship. Commercial persuasion utilizes the agencies of advertising and salesmanship. Legal conflicts include litigations in the courts. In all these illustrations the individual strives to further his own interests by his persuative ability. Oftentimes resort is made to cheap persuasive methods, such as demagogy or political claptrap. Sometimes the persuasion falls to the level of deception and, occasionally, to destructive depths.

(4) The highest form of conflicts are the productive types. Some productive conflicts refer to rivalries in producing economic goods; others to rivalries in rendering service. In his Essays in Social Justice, Professor Carver discusses three forms of economic competition at length. Here he includes competitive production, competitive bargaining, and competitive consumption of economic goods. The second class has already been referred to as commercial persuasion. Competitive production increases the supply of economic goods and “always works well.” Competitive consumption, however, “always works badly.” It means “rivalry in display, in ostentation, in the effort to outshine or to outdress all one’s neighbors, or at least not to be outshone or outdressed by them.” It is usually deceptive; it has no productive features about it. It may even assume a form of waste and destruction. The highest type of conflict is friendly rivalry in rendering service to other people.

Professor Carver would have self-interest direct its efforts toward the welfare of the nation. Since neither law nor government can eliminate self-interest, the next best thing is to connect it with national well-being. Nearly all useful things that are done in a community are undertaken through self-interest.XX-15 Even co-operation is a form of competition.XX-16 The purpose of co-operation is to enable groups of individuals to compete more effectively against opposing groups.

Competition is not an evil in itself. The spirit which dominates competition is the important thing. Some people are motivated by the pig-trough philosophy, which emphasizes struggle for the sake of possession and consumption of goods. The workbench philosophy accents “action and not possession, production and not consumption.”

These theories, excellent in many particulars, apparently do not rate at full value the fact that education and love can and do modify the self-interest of the individual, and at the same time direct the attention of the individual toward unselfish service. In stressing service through achievement and production, they neglect to emphasize achievement through service. Competition in rendering unselfish service is underrated.

It was Novicow, the Russian sociologist, who laid bare the alleged benefits of war, showing that the gains which come from war may be obtained through other methods of social interaction.XX-17 Novicow argued forcefully that the real enemies of a group of people are disease germs and death, not the best people of other nationality groups. Novicow’s vision enabled him to perceive the foolishness of men who lock themselves together in destructive conflict, when the real enemies are microscopic disease bacteria and the gaunt black specter of death.

Conflict bulks large in the sociology of Edward A. Ross. Any interference with the carrying out of the individual’s plans and with the satisfying of his interests creates opposition. The best characteristic of the phenomenon of opposition is that it awakens and stimulates.XX-18 Competition operates according to psychologic laws; for example, the intensity of competition varies according (1) to the degree of personal liberty, (2) to the rate of social change, and (3) inversely as the efficiency of the selective agents.XX-19

One of the most important forms of competition is found in industrialism. The invention and adoption of the power-driven machine has created an industrialism which is moulding and transforming society in startling ways, and which is causing “its members more and more to cluster at opposite poles of the social spindle.”XX-20 Professor Ross expresses slight hope that the ownership of industrial capital will be disseminated through the working class according to the conflict rules of the present economic system.

Other conflict theories will be presented in the following chapters; for example, the conflict theories of Gustav Ratzenhofer and Albion W. Small will be noted in the chapter on co-operation concepts, and Gabriel Tarde’s analysis of conflict will be taken up in the discussion of psycho-sociological thought.

In general, the social conflict doctrines, when carried to the extreme, fail to recognize that conflict and co-operation are correlative social processes. Humanly speaking, one is as old as the other. Both spring from the deepest types of human needs. While the earliest types of associative life may have been characterized by a predominance of conflict, the highest stages are ruled by the co-operative spirit. This transition together with the leading co-operation theories of social progress will be taken up in the chapter which follows.

Suffice it to say here that conflict and competition are essential to social advance. They are both highly useful when operating in the fields of production and service.