7■ Incompatible goals Figure 3.1. Possible Causes of Goal Incompatibility it is possible to reduce this perplexing variety by classifying resources into three main categories: wealth, power, and prestige (Weber [1922] 1947). Wealth. Because the first of the three main resources, wealth, usually involves "tangibles," it is easiest to understand. Today, when speaking of wealth, we tend to think of money - the source of much happiness and unhappiness, and of many conflicts. If you wish to see a conflict over money, attend a meeting at which the lawyer reads the last will of a recently deceased parent. The children, who in the past managed to get along in a reasonably civil manner will, more likely than not, be at each other's throats because each believes that he or she deserves more money than they actually got. In ancient times the most important type of wealth was land, the source of prestige and power. Even though not as important as it once was, land is still a source of many serious conflicts. For example, both the Israelis and the Palestinians claim that East Jerusalem has historically been theirs and only they should have sovereignty there now. The Golan Heights, now occupied by the Israelis, was until 1967 a part of Syria and is claimed by it. Power. There are those who seem to be bent on gaining and exercising power at all cost. They tell others what to do but respond angrily whenever others make suggestions to them; they monopolize conversations; they demand that they be treated with respect at all times. Nations can be - and usually are - equally power-hungry. They arm themselves to the teeth; they threaten their neighbors with armed intervention; they suppress internal dissention with force. development of incompatible goals 3» It is not difficult to identify actors who are powerful. But it is difficult to put your finger on what it is that they have. What exacdy is power? While literature abounds with different definitions, we propose one that fits with our discussion of coerciveness: an actor is powerful if he or she can coerce others to do what he or she wants them to do by altering their payoffs: by either promising to reward the action he or she desires or by threatening to punish them if they fail to do so. Quite often, power is unequally distributed, with those who have only a little wanting more, those who have a lot wanting to keep it. Yet the very concept of "power inequality" is somewhat ambiguous, for it can have two quite different meanings. First, power inequality may involve domination: party A has power over and dominates party B. Such situations often lead to a fight for liberation from oppression. Historical examples abound, ranging from slave revolts against Roman masters to the fight of Chechen rebels for independence from Russia. Second, power inequality exists when A does not dominate B, but has greater power potential than B does. This type of power inequality also can lead to conflict. This is because power is often a "zero-sum" commodity: if one party gains it, somebody else must lose it. Thus when the less powerful party seeks to increase its power potential, the more powerful party will resist these efforts.1 To illustrate the difference between these two types of power inequality, consider Germany following World War I. Through the Versailles treaty, Germany was reduced to a minor power and was required to pay heavy reparations to the victorious allies. This gave the allies power to dominate Germany's economy. When Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, he reduced this power by blatantly ignoring the Versailles treaty. In addition, by rearming Germany, he made that nation stronger, thus increasing its power potential. Just how much the balance of power had shifted toward Germany was shown when Hidcr invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia with impunity. This would not have happened before Germany's rearmament. Prestige. Street gang members constantly strive to gain a reputation for being tough and fearless, often by such acts as drive-by shootings. Often, there is conflict within a gang as young members try to show that they are tougher than their current leader. Gang leadership can 32 using conflict theory change rapidly and often. Similarly, movie or rock stars are adored by their fans for only short periods of time, being soon displaced by new idols. In these examples the struggle is about prestige (also referred to as "reputation," "respect," or "esteem"), the third most important contested resource. It is a scarce resource because, by definition, it presupposes ranking from the most respected to the least, and because most of us desire high prestige but only a few can have it at any given time. Prestige is often closely linked with power: a person who has power is often held in high respect; a person who is highly respected often can acquire power. Yet prestige is conceptually different from power. Whereas power is based on the ability to alter another's payoffs, prestige is based on the ability to live up to the group's ideals. We respect, admire, and listen to an outstanding athlete, a saint, a successful general, a Nobel laureate. Because prestige is earned by exemplifying a group's ideals, and because in modern societies different groups have different ideals, a person who enjoys high prestige in one group or one setting may have low prestige in another. This is due to the fact that membership in different groups is assigned different values. Thus, in the days of racial segregation, famous black entertainers such as trumpeter Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong might receive a standing ovation from their audiences and still not be allowed to dine or stay in the very clubs where they performed. At the same time, it is possible to gain respect from those who have denied it in the past, and to do so through conflict action. For example, denying African Americans seating in the front of the bus in the segregated South was a sign of disrespect. The civil rights struggle not only forced southern states to discontinue this practice, but also earned higher respect for blacks. This was finally accomplished when - and only when - it was made clear by civil rights activists and federal courts that such disrespect was contrary to the basic values of American society. Reasons for the Contest Obviously, there are many reasons why one actor may want somebody else's resources. A playground bully may try to take away another child's toys because of his sociopathic personality-Japan may have embarked development of incompatible goals 33 on its expansionist policies during World War II because it lacked natural resources such as oil. But perhaps the most common reason for a contest-and one that has been theorized about most-is injustice: one party has resources that rightfully belong to another party. Injustice. Justice and injustice sire among the most elusive and disputed concepts in social theory. And yet, without having a clear idea of what is and is not unjust, it would be nearly impossible to understand many conflicts. The concept of distributive justice yields one clear definition. Although this concept is quite old, its importance was recendy re-emphasized by Walton and McKersie (1965). But for us, the clearest and most complete exposition is again by George Homans (1974). Roughly speaking, Homans argues that most of us live by the same basic principles: we believe that we are treated unjusdy if we receive less reward than is appropriate (proportional) to our contribution to the group and to our investments in the group.2 For example, factory workers will compare the wages they are paid and the enjoyment they derive from their work (their rewards) with the hours they have to work, their level of responsibility, and the tension it generates (their contributions), and with their seniority, amount of education, and membership in prestigious groups (their investment). If the distribution of wealth, prestige, and power is - and is believed to be - unjust, those treated unjusdy will desire to get more than they are currently receiving.3 This creates incompatible goals: the privileged wish to maintain the status quo, the underprivileged to change it to their advantage. But there sire at least two reasons why the theory of distributive justice alone might not account adequately for what is viewed as fair and just. One reason is that its principles can be at odds with a society's culture. In some cases, culture is so strong that it totally overrides the principles of distributive justice. For example, Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be gods who must be obeyed, right or wrong. In other cases, culture is weaker, and beliefs in distributive justice coexist with widely held cultural beliefs. For example, American culture emphasizes equality, usually equality of opportunity but sometimes even equality of results. Some hold that wealth, prestige, and power should be equally distributed: they view the very rich with suspicion, call bosses by their first names, and resent being told what to do, even by their 34 using conflict theory bosses. And yet these Americans also abide by the principles of distributive justice: they believe that parents should have more power than their children, that a competent employee should be paid better than one who does not do her job properly, that a law-abiding person should be respected more than a criminal. The second problem is that Homans's theory is often difficult to use in practice. The privileged are bound to argue that their contributions and investments are higher, just as surely as the underprivileged will argue that they are not. Thus less controversial criteria are needed, such as relative deprivation - a concept that plays a crucial role in the conflict theory developed by Gurr (1970). If you are gainfully employed, you may decide that you are treated unfairly by comparing yourself to others who have jobs similar to yours. If you find that they are being rewarded more than you are, you feel "relatively deprived." Thus fire fighters will compare their salaries with those of police officers, police in one city will compare themselves with those in another, and so on. True, for the reasons mentioned earlier, some clearly deprived groups do not make such comparisons. For example, in traditional Hindu society, the members of the outcaste groups did not compare themselves unfavorably to the members of the higher castes such as the Brahmins, even though they were much poorer and had to work very hard at menial jobs. This was because the Hindu religion taught that people's position in life was a reflection of their performance in their previous life: a person who had lived a good life would, in the next life, move into a higher caste; a person who failed to live meritoriously would move to a lower caste or out of the system completely. Thus the power, wealth, and prestige of the Brahmins were seen as rewards for their exemplary previous lives. By contrast, the outcastes were believed to deserve their lowly position because they had not behaved well in their previous lives. Consequently, the caste system was seen as just - although that belief weakened in the second half of the twentieth century. Feelings of injustice can also occur when we compare what we get now to what we were getting in the past. Thus social conflicts tend to occur when economic depression creates wide-scale unemployment. Or we may compare what we are receiving to what we have been promised. In some cases, the promises are implicit. For example, in a development of incompatible goals 35 broad historical perspective, popular uprisings seem to be more likely when the conditions of the oppressed are beginning to get better than when they remain at the same low level. This is because the improvements cause the oppressed to believe that they were "promised" more than any regime can deliver.4 One can put up with a lot if the demands made by others are sanctioned by the society itself: children tend to obey their parents, soldiers their officers, students their teachers. But if the legitimacy of the "rulers" is in doubt, rebellion rather than obedience may be forthcoming. Max Weber ([1922] 1947) discussed three conditions under which domination is likely to be viewed as legitimate and therefore just. The first condition exists primarily in small tribal societies. In these groups, a leader is viewed as legitimate if he has charisma,5 that is, if he can perform acts of exceptional bravery or miracles such as walking on water, healing the sick, or raising the dead. Although charisma is of crucial importance in tribal societies, it is also of some importance in modem societies. When a leader addressing a large audience is able to keep it spellbound, he or she has charisma. Orators such as Adolf Hitler or Martin Luther King and great actors such as Laurence Olivier had charisma. Mediocre speakers and actors do not. Charismatically legitimated power is very unstable, because the leader who fails to perform extraordinary feats continuously will come to be seen as illegitimate. For this reason, charismatic power is often routinized into a second type, one that Weber calls "traditional." This type of power is found mostly in preindustrial societies that are fairly large and lead a settled life. As the name suggests, in these societies a ruler is viewed legitimate if he or she has acquired power and wields it in a manner prescribed by the customs of the community. For example, William the Conqueror, being an illegitimate son of an English king, was not selected as that king's successor, and had to take the throne by invading England. In modern societies legitimate power tends to be of the third, or bureaucratic type.6 A person holding a high position in a bureaucracy is presumed to have legitimate power if he or she was chosen in accordance with specific written rules and follows the prescriptions of the office. Thus Richard Nixon was forced to resign when he was widely seen as having violated the duties of the U.S. presidency. 36 using conflict theory Absolute Deprivation. While a sense of injustice may be the most important reason why one party wants more than it has, there are other reasons. One of these is "absolute" deprivation. It occurs when a party is deprived of whatever it needs to lead a decent life. For example, during the early 1800s, the reladonship between the Apache tribes and the Spanish and Anglo setders in northern Mexico and southeastern Arizona was reladvely peaceful as long as the Spanish colonial government of Mexico provided the Apaches with regular radons of food.7 But when the Mexican Revolution of 1810 drained government resources, those rations dwindled and became insufficient. In 1824 the Apaches bolted from their settlements and began raiding white settlements. A lengthy war between the setders and the Indians ensued (Sweeney 1991). Belligerent Culture or Personality. The word "belligerence" is derived from Latin for "waging war" (yVebster's 1976, 102). Although today the term has several commonly accepted meanings, we shall use it here to mean a disposition toward coercive action.8 Thus a wife may be always finding fault with what the husband does, one of a set of siblings may fight constantly, Germany may start many wars. When adversaries have incompatible goals, even when none of the obvious causes - such as injustice - is operating, the cause may be a belligerent personality or culture. Often, we can gain considerable insight into a conflict if we know the actors' culture. For example, if we know that Apache men were expected to be warlike and the Hopi to be peaceful, we can understand why Apaches routinely raided other tribes. But if we wish to gain deeper theoretical understanding, we need to ask why these cultural differences exist in the first place. One of the most plausible explanations refers to the actors' "mode of production." According to this theory, the Hopi, earning their living by agriculture, had to live setded lives and, thus provided with enough resources to live, developed litde desire to attack others. Being dependent on having farming technology, they gradually developed a culture that valued hard work and was peaceful. The Apaches, on the other hand, relied primarily on hunting. Because they needed to move frequently to follow game, and even then often went hungry; because they often encountered opposition from other tribes; and because they had to development of incompatible goals 37 use weapons when hunting or fighting, they developed a culture that valued bravery and was warlike. The second main reason for inherent belligerence is the actors' personality. For example, a playground bully will always attack other children, taking away their toys; some football players will fight hard to score even when they have been injured. Once again, knowing the actor's personality helps us to understand why he or she is engaged in a conflict. But why do personalities differ? One reason has just been discussed - the actor's culture. Parents bring up their children to uphold the values of their society; thus their personality is, to some extent, a reflection of that culture. Because the Hopi praised their children for cooperative behavior, the Hopi tended to be peaceful toward others; because the Apache rewarded their children for bravery and aggressiveness, Apache adults tended to be belligerent even toward each other. But noncultural factors shape personality as well. Some aspects of personality - such as intelligence - seem to be genetically determined. But an actor may also become habitually belligerent if his or her aggressive behavior has been well rewarded in the past. For example, a boy who has been a successful athlete in high school may become a highly aggressive business executive. Whatever its causes, belligerence contributes to goal incompatibility. Thus the playground bully may have the goal of taking away another child's toy, while that child will have the goal of keeping it; the Apaches who attacked a ranch often had the goal of taking away the rancher's catde, while the rancher's goal was to keep his cattle for himself. Incompatible Roles Two parties can have incompatible goals because they play different roles in an institution or an organization. The so-called functional school of theorizing explains role differentiation by noting that societies work better if they divide their labor.9 Industrial societies have several social institutions, each attending to specific functions. They have families to provide a haven for family members and to raise children; religions to define and enforce main moral values; political institutions to set common goals and to distribute resources; economic institutions to produce goods and services (Parsons and Smelser 1956). Moreover, 3« using conflict theory modern societies create organizations that further differentiate labor: management coordinates the work; engineers design the products; workers produce them; and salespeople sell them. Thus most employees play a role that has been assigned to them.10 Vertical Differentiation Sociologists have paid most attention to what might be called vertical role differentiation. It assigns different roles to different positions within the power hierarchy. This differentiation occurs within both social institutions and groups: parents have power over their children, ministers over their parishioners, managers over workers, government officials over citizens. Sociologists have long studied vertical role differentiation and the resulting conflict, especially in industrial organizations, but they have not always agreed on why the conflict exists. Karl Marx, who initiated inquiry into this problem, explained it in one way; Ralf Dahrendorf, another German sociologist, quite differendy. Marx's Theory. Marx developed a complex theory of social systems, one that was augmented and changed over the years. Yet there is a continuing theme in his writing that ties social conflict to private ownership: social conflicts exist because there are those who own the means of production and those who work for the owners (Marx and Engels [1846] 1947). The goals and interests of these two groups are incompatible, and they are therefore inevitably in conflict with each other. What constitutes the "means of production" depends on the mode of production. In feudal societies the main mode of production was agriculture; hence the main means of production was land. Land pitted those who owned it, the aristocracy, against those who worked on it, the peasants, serfs, and slaves.11 In capitalist societies, the main means of production is capital, most notably factories and information. The basic cleavage is between those who own the capital (the capitalists, also known as the bourgeoisie) and those who work for them (the proletariat). Marx's analysis of conflict in capitalist societies led him to conclude that the capitalist's relendess pursuit of profit creates many problems for the workers. He argued that, in the long run, there is only one way a capitalist can make a profit - by exploiting workers. He must development of incompatible goals 39 pay them less than the goods they produce are worth. In fact, Marx believed that capitalists will always try to reduce the wage to a mere subsistence level, to a point where it is barely sufficient for the survival of the worker and his family. Not surprisingly, the proletariat's goal is the opposite: to raise wages to a fair level. Marx saw additional reasons for the incompatibility between bourgeoisie and proletariat in goals and interests. In their ruthless pursuit of profit, capitalists dehumanize their workers. They do not hesitate to tear them away from their families and their churches, to turn them into machines doing boring and repetitive work without knowing its purpose. Thus, the ultimate goal of the proletariat is (should be) the destruction of the capitalist system, just as the goal of the capitalist is the preservation of the system. Dahrendorf s Theory. Subsequent writers found Marx's analysis wanting. Among the most influential is Ralf Dahrendorf (1959). Having criticized Marx's theory of conflict on the grounds that it has yielded predictions that proved false, he proceeded to make his most important point.12 He argued that Marx failed to make correct predictions because he took into account only a special case of a more general phenomenon. Marx believed that private ownership of the means of production is the cause of social conflicts - that if it were eliminated, harmony would prevail. In point of fact, said Dahrendorf, the true cause is more general: it is an aspect of the vertical differentiation itself - the division between those who protect the interest of the whole, and the interests of the remaining group members. The "whole versus part" aspect of vertical differentiation exists and creates incompatible goals in many diverse associations. In some cases, the incompatibility is between the stated goals of the organization and the goals of its members as individuals. For example, although priests and ministers should (and usually do) lead church members on the road to righteousness, some members find sinful ways more enjoyable. Although professors should (and often do) impart knowledge to students, some students wish to enjoy their stay at the university and study as little as possible. Although the commissioners of a county are responsible for collective needs such as well-kept roads and fire protection, some citizens are concerned only with lowering their taxes. 4o using conflict theory In other cases, the incompatibility is between the stated goals of the whole organization and the goals of those who are assigned more specific tasks within it. Thus the managers of a firm should see to it that the firm makes a good profit, while the engineers should design the best possible product, no matter how expensive it may be. Who Is Right* To whom should you listen, to Marx, who often saw social conflict as rooted in private ownership, or to Dahrendorf, who attributed it to vertical role differentiation? As recent history has shown, this question is far from trivial. If you side with Marx, you may try to minimize social conflicts by eliminating private ownership - an approach adopted by Soviet leaders. If you listen to Dahrendorf, you may try to minimize concentration of power - an approach typical of Western democracies.13 We side with Dahrendorf, simply because his theory is more general and thus explains more than Marx's does. For example, why did the miners in the former Soviet Union rebel against their managers, even though the means of production were not privately owned? Why did the workers throw in their lot with the dissidents in communist countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia? DahrendorFs theory suggests that they rebelled because their interests and goals were different from those of the people who were responsible for the whole: the managers wanted to fulfill the current five-year plan, the workers wanted a decent living without backbreaking work.14 To get to the main thrust of our argument, we must make a technical point: although those who are responsible for the whole group nearly always have more power than those who are not, this book separates these two aspects of inequality. Earlier, we noted that those who have power tend to have different goals than those who do not; now we are saying that those who are responsible for the whole would have different goals than those who are responsible for the parts, even if there were no power difference between them. This comparison puts Marx's theory in a new light. Marx was undoubtedly right when he spoke of the shameless exploitation of workers by nineteenth-century capitalists. However, one could point out - as would Dahrendorf - that this was not only because capitalists had unlimited power and used it to their own advantage, but also because they had to seek prosperity for the whole of their enterprises. development of incompatible goals 41 Thus the incompatibility of goals was due not only to exploitation by those with power, but also to the fact that capitalist enterprises had to make a profit in order to survive, while the workers had to have decent wages to live. Horizontal Differentiation An organization or institution usually has role differentiation that is due to the very fact that many members have only partial and specific responsibilities. For example, an organization might have one type of role for engineers, another for salespeople, still another for accountants. Such role differentiation may be called horizontal to indicate that although the roles are different, the people playing them relate to each other as colleagues, not as superiors and subordinates. On paper, the specialized roles are designed in such a way that they work in harmony to achieve a common purpose: the engineers prepare blueprints for the products, the salespeople endeavor to sell it, the accountants manage the finances. In reality, the goals assigned to different specialists may be incompatible. Suppose that an engineer is assigned the task of upgrading a jet fighter. She proceeds to do the best job she can, using the newest available technology. Often, this requires adding new equipment that, in turn, needs to be monitored by the pilot. Then the prototype of the redesigned fighter is given to a test pilot. He finds that the cockpit is so full of dials and levers as to be unmanageable. And the stage is set for a conflict: the engineers strive to include the newest technology; the test pilots want a plane that can be handled with ease. Incompatible Values Groups that are separated from each other tend to develop different cultures that may advocate incompatible values - that is, the standards of tightness and goodness that hold a culture and society together. Let us consider how value incompatibility can happen. Separation Any individual, separated from others, will in time develop a unique set of values. He or she will abandon these values in favor of group t 42 using conflict theory development of incompatible goals 43 I values only if he or she interacts frequently with the group members. The same is true for groups. Separation of Individuals. Within-group interaction tends to be most intense in small tribal societies. Although a large society can preserve some of the features of a small group -Japanese society being a prominent example - in most instances large industrial societies tend to promote the culture of individualism, thereby inhibiting free within-group interaction. Individualism encourages the members to formulate and develop their own values rather than to accept those of their group. Just how extreme individualism can be is suggested by Bellah et al. (1986, 221): they found that, in the contemporary United States, some individuals had created a religion of their very own, with their own unique beliefs and rituals. One of the reasons why individuals separated from others develop unique values is a difference in personalities: some are aggressive, others passive; some are talkative, others taciturn; some like to solve problems in solitude, others like to socialize. These personality differences can create value differences and lead to incompatible goals. Thus two roommates might be in conflict because one likes the room clean and well organized whereas the other likes to be free to put things wherever she wants. At times, these differences can erupt into conflict over seemingly trivial matters such as not keeping the cap on the toothpaste. Separation of Groups. When a nomadic tribe moves into a new territory and becomes prosperous, its population grows in size. But a tribal society can function adequately only when it is small, say between fifteen and fifty members. When it grows larger, some of its members leave and create a new social unit at a new location. Given the physical separation, interaction between the original tribe and the new unit becomes minimal, while within each unit it is intense.15 Ultimately, the two groups develop different cultures. For example, Swiss villages located in isolated valleys have developed unique dialects that are unintelligible to villagers in other valleys. Although such linguistic differences need not create incompatible values, sometimes they do. At the very least, each village considers itself superior to its neighbors. Group separation has similar consequences in modern societies. Because members of separate groups seldom interact across their group's boundaries, their cultures become different - in some cases, incompatible. Consider, for example, the proliferation of cults in contemporary American society, ranging from religious cults that worship ancient gods to secular cults such as militias that oppose the government. Each group is small and has clearly defined beliefs, values, and norms that make it distinct from other cults and from mainstream culture. Personal and Group Identity. An important reason why different actors have incompatible goals is that they - be they individuals or groups -value themselves much more highly than others value them. They feel that they are not fully appreciated by others, that they are not receiving their due: students are shattered if they receive a bad grade, employees feel almost invariably that they deserve higher pay, children feel that their siblings are loved more than they are. And, as has been observed by anthropologists, all societies are "ethnocentric," believing themselves better than others. Not surprisingly, I need to justify why I am better than others think I am. So I construct an identity that proves it. I may believe that, although I did not have the same education as my colleagues, I have a better intuitive understanding of how to solve problems; that, although my parents were poor farmers, I am just as good as anybody else because I have an ancestor who came to America on the Mayflower; that, although my business is not doing very well, I have always treated my customers fairly. Similarly, groups develop identities that justify their imagined superiority: the French may believe that they are more cultured than the Americans; the southern whites that they are more industrious and honest than the blacks; the Apaches that they arc braver than the Hopis. A discussion of group identity would be incomplete without considering its current version, one that exists primarily in large contemporary societies. It occurred as a result of several developments happening more or less simultaneously, such as industrialization and urbanization, population growth and mobility, and technological advances - especially in communication and transportation. These 44 using conflict theory changes made it possible to mobilize the population of large societies such as France and the United States, and unify it through a commonly held set of values - values that became known as nationalism: a desire to achieve, maintain, and perpetuate the identity, integrity, prosperity, and power of the entire nation (Christenson et al. 1975, 24-30). Perhaps all groups in danger of losing their identity will fight. Chicanos wish to preserve their language and cultural heritage and resist attempts at assimilating them into Anglo culture. Even the friendliest Indian tribes have turned to warfare once the whites started to take away their land or despoil their sacred grounds. Ethnic groups within the Soviet Union declared their independence as soon as the power of the central government diminished. But nationalism, because it occurs in large societies equipped with modern and deadly weapons, changed the nature of conflict dramatically, making it so destructive as to threaten the very existence of humankind. Values of Communities and Systems It is impossible to predict in detail what culture will be created by separated groups. Some tribes worship the sun, others the ocean; some societies prescribe that one should eat with forks and knives, others that one ought to use chopsticks. But in certain very general respects one can predict the type of values a society will develop: small tribal societies tend to develop "communal" values, whereas large industrial societies tend to adopt "system" values. Classical sociologists, trying to explain the functioning of societies, found that they could not do so without distinguishing between two broad types of social arrangements. At first, they thought that this distinction was linked to historical development. They believed that early, preindustrial societies had social arrangements and values quite different from those of the emerging industrial societies. Although this point was made most forcefully by German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies ([1887] 1963), other sociologists made similar observations. Because each of them arrived at this conclusion from a different starting point, they all conceptualized this variation somewhat differently and gave it different names.10 But contemporary German sociologist Jürgen Habermas (1987) argues that all societies have both types of these arrangements, that they differ merely in how important each Development of incompatible goals 45 ngement is. He calls these two types of arrangements "lifeworld" Ki "system." This book uses his term "system" but not - because it ems confusing to many — his term "lifeworld." Instead, we shall speak rout "communities" and "communal" values. American sociologist Talcott Parsons (Parsons and Shills 1951) tveloped a theory that helps us understand these differences. He oted that before specific social arrangements can be created, five asic decisions must be made. Should the relationships between mem-ers be affective or affectively neutral, self-oriented or collectively ori-jited, universalistic or particularistic, specific or diffuse, ascriptive or chievement-oriented? t These distinctions may be illustrated by contrasting the values of a mother with those of a surgeon. Whereas a mother is expected to pelate to her children in an "affective" and loving way, a surgeon should rver get emotionally involved with his or her patients and thus never cats members of his or her own family. Whereas a mother should ave a "collectivist" orientation, caring for her children as much as or tore than she cares about herself, a surgeon is expected to be strongly ^motivated by money and reputation. Whereas a mother should have ^.'"particularistic" orientation toward her children, believing them to Ipe the most beautiful and the smartest, a surgeon should provide the pime quality of service universally, to all patients. Whereas a mother's I role is defined in a "diffuse" manner - she is expected to be a nurse, a I^Jiauffeur, a teacher, or whatever is called for - a surgeon typically is a I Specialist, perhaps performing only heart surgeries. Finally, whereas |'a mother's role is defined in an "ascriptive" fashion - because only j a woman can perform it and (until very recendy) most women were expected to perform it - anybody who completes the requisite medical training achieves the status of a surgeon. Once a society has specified its preferred types of relationships, it has created a social structure and, in effect, inaugurated a set of cultural values. Although any combination of values is possible, they often tend to coalesce into two mutually exclusive sets. One set is typical of communities, the other of industrial systems (see Table 3.1). Different structures promote different types of values. Communal values are created spontaneously when members of a society engage W free, face-to-face communication that can occur only in small groups. Early in history, communal values were found in small tribes; today 46 Table 3.1. Values of Communities and Industrial Systems using conflict theory development of incompatible goals 47 Communal Values of Industrial Values Systems Be affective Be affectively neutral Be collectivistic Be self-oriented Be particularistic Be univcrsalistic Be ascriptive Be achievement-oriented Be diffuse Be specific they exist in small groups such as families, clubs, or religious cults. Although communal values originate in small groups, they can also be found in certain larger groupings that were derived from the original small groups: Christian Scientists, Alcoholics Anonymous, the National Organization for Women. And although their cultures may differ in many respects, they are similar in that they tend to adopt the values of the community. The values of the "system" emerge when a society attempts to solve its problems in an instrumentally rational way,17 especially when members of a society attempt to solve problems posed by their "environment." As Parsons has noted, when the members consider how best to "adapt" to the environment - how to organize themselves in order to extract raw materials and transform them into usable goods - they tend to create economic organizations and institutions. And in industrial societies, these organizations and institutions tend to be bureaucratic, that is, hierarchical, formal, and highly differentiated. Hence the industrial system has the values listed in the right column of Table 3.1. Before leaving this topic, we must clarify one point. Whereas all communities promote the values listed in the first column of Table 3.1, only industrial systems promote the values listed in the right column. Other types of systems may promote some of the communal values. For example, the Catholic Church, which reflects many of the values of feudal systems, does not assign specialized roles to those at the lower levels of its hierarchy: a priest is expected to minister to all spiritual needs of his parishioners. Moreover, the church teaches the collectivistic values of self-sacrifice and emphasizes affective values such as "love thy neighbor." The systems of future societies may also be expected to advocate many of the communal values.18 Habermas (1987) has pointed out that the difference between communal and system values can be a source of social conflict. In fact, he argued that in the advanced industrial societies the system "colonizes" and "deforms" communal life. For example, money and power interfere with the free interaction that is at the heart of communities (Ritzer H 1992,446). m M- Role Differentiation 'ffV Role differentiation tends to create incompatible goals directly, by •3*V asking those who play different roles to act in incompatible ways. But it can also create incompatibility indirectly, by promoting different ^1; values. Teachers and educators not only have the goal of teaching their vi students, they also tend to value knowledge as such. Military officers jr. not only have the goal of creating units that will fight well but also •'£ cherish the values of honor and obedience. And so on. Some roles emphasize communal values; others, system values. For example, a minister is likely to emphasize the need for universal love, one of the primary communal values. A businessman, on the other hand, is just as likely to feel that in the business context efficiency - a value of the industrial system - is more important than active concern for others. Conclusions We began by explaining goal incompatibility in terms of three main causes: contested resources, incompatible roles, and incompatible values. We can now elaborate on that explanation. Although the more detailed explanation, shown in Figure 3.2, is too complex to be quickly understood, you can profit from it if you are willing to spend some time studying it: you will come to understand how the causes depicted in the simpler graph of Figure 3.1 are themselves produced. Figure 3.2 shows that there are three main reasons why you might contest the distribution of resources: because you believe that you are treated unjustly, because you do not have enough to live decently ("absolute" deprivation), or because you have a belligerent culture 48 Relative deprivation Dlegitimate power Absolute deprivation Belligerent culture or personality Whole-part differentiation Task specialization using conflict theory ► Incompatible goals Separation Difference in size & -technology Incompatibility^ ■> of values Community--> system incompatibility Figure 3.2. Causes of Incompatible Goals or personality. It further shows how you can document injustice: by showing that you are deprived in comparison to others, or by proving that those who have power hold it illegitimately. The graph also reminds us that role incompatibility exists for one of two main reasons: either because "vertical" differentiation assigns those in power the responsibility for the whole organization while assigning to the remaining members only specialized tasks; or because "horizontal" differentiation assigns specialized tasks to different members. Finally, Figure 3.2 shows that there are three general reasons why two parties may have different values: because they play different roles. development of incompatible goals 49 because they have been separated from each other, and because their groups differ in size and technology. Differences in size and technology matter because, when members of one party live in a small rural community while most of their opponents live in large industrial cities, the first party will have the "communal" values described in the first column of Table 3.1, the opponent the "system" values shown in the second column. Figure 3.2 shows causes that may but need not operate in any specific conflict. The discussion of the next chapter makes this point vividly by showing that the U.S. civil rights conflict has only one main cause, while an organizational conflict to be discussed in Chapter 6 was shaped by several causes.