|
xi there is today a considerable need for reorienting sociological analysis to problems of change, conflict, and coercion in social structures, and especially in those of total societies.
p.133 If social change is not confined to revolutionary explosions but is a constituent element of every structure as such, it is no longer necessary to assert a linear development of classes and class conflicts toward the point of revolution.
p.135 I am using the term "conflict" in this study for contests, competitions, disputes, and tensions as well as for manifest clashes between social forces. All relations between sets of individuals that involve an incompatible difference of objective... are, in this sense, relations of social conflict.
p.157 how is it that human societies cohere? There is one large and distinguished school of thought according to which social order results from a general agreement of values, a consensus omnium- or volonte generale which outweighs all possible or actual differences of opinion and interest. There is another equally distinguished school of thought which holds that coherence and order in society are founded on force and constraint, on the domination of some and the subjection of others.
p.159 Generally speaking, it seems to me that two (meta-) theories can and must be distinguished in contemporary sociology. One of these, the integration theory of society, conceives of social structure in terms of a functionally integrated system held in equilibrium by certain patterned and recurrent processes. The other one, the coercion theory of society views social structure as a form of organization held together by force and constraint and reaching continuously beyond itself in the sense of producing within itself the forces that maintain it in an unending process of change. Like their philosophical counterparts, these theories are mutually exclusive.
p.162 What I have called the coercion theory of society can also be reduced to a small number of basic tenets, although here again these assumptions oversimplify and overstate the case:
(1) Every society is at every point subject to processes of change; social change is ubiquitous.
(2) Every society displays at every point dissensus and conflict; social conflict is ubiquitous.
(3) Every element in a society renders a contribution to its disintegration and change.
(4) Every society is based on the coercion of some of its members by others.
p.162-163 I need hardly add that, like the integration model, the coercion theory of society constitutes but a set of assumptions for purposes of scientific analysis and implies no claim for philosophical validity - although, like its counterpart, this model also provides a coherent image of social organization.
Now, I would claim that, in a sociological context, neither of these models can be conceived as exclusively valid or applicable. They constitute complementary, rather than alternative, aspects of the structure of total societies as well as of every element of this structure. We have to choose between them only for the explanation of specific problems - but in the conceptual arsenal of sociological analysis they exist side by side. Whatever criticism one may have of the advocates of one or the other of these models can therefore be directed only against claims for the exclusive validity of either. Strictly speaking, both models are "valid" or, rather, useful and necessary for sociological analysis. We cannot conceive of society unless we realize the dialectics of stability and change, integration and conflict, function and motive force, consensus and coercion. In the context of this study, I regard this point as demonstrated by the analysis of the exemplary problems sketched above.
p.166 For Weber, power is the "probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests"
p.208 Dubin's observation that conflict is a stubborn fact of social life is undoubtedly justified... it appears that not only in social life, but wherever there is life, there is conflict. May we perhaps go so far as to say that conflict is a condition necessary for life to be possible at all?
p.209 Mack and Snyder state... "conflict arises from 'position scarcity' and 'resource scarcity,' " and that therefore "conflict relations always involve attempts to gain control of scarce resources and positions"
|
