Role of conflict in organizational dynamics

Conflict

The Role of Conflict in Society, the Role of Conflict in Marx, Weber and Durkheim

Although conflict is often viewed in negative terms in today's society, the idea of class conflict assumes a positive shade in Karl Marx's discussion of the class struggle that drives modern history. According to Marx, all of human history has existed in the form of a struggle in regards to class. Every phase of human history is divided between the struggle between those who have, economically speaking, and those who 'have not.' This conflict results in a constant state of tension or conflict between these two types of human instruments that generate material economic production. This sense of conflict invariably cumulates in an overthrow of the ruling power and the installation of a new regime. However, historically, this new regime of 'haves,' rather than providing a solution to the tensions of class conflict, only generates a new schema of self-justifying ideology, and eventually history recreates yet again a structure of conflicted classes and an economic state of material disequilibria.

Critical to Marx's perspective on conflict in human history is his focus upon material circumstances. Weber's theory of capitalism may be seen as similarly materially focused and dependent upon conflict as a force in driving human history forward. However, Weber adds a crucial element to Marx's theory. Rather than seeing all ideological products as having their roots in economic production and the self-serving (however unconsciously) mentality of the bourgeois, Weber stresses the philosophical evolution of the so-called "Protestant work ethic" in the evolution of modern, economic life.

Thus, conflict for Weber, is not only material. Conflict is also ideological in nature. The conditions involved what Weber calls mental production, he states, may be seen as distinct from purely material effects. Philosophical conditions can independently produce material economic effects, while Marx would assert that the material conditions must always come first, and then generate the ideology. For instance, for Weber, the evolution of Protestantism, and the infusion of economic life with a holy purpose enabled modern, capitalist life to become more systematized and mechanized.

Weber, in contrast to Marx, thus does not see societal and historical conflict progressing upon a two-fold struggle of rebellion and the reconstruction of a new class system. Rather, he believes that there are several different forms of property and ownership that can exist in any society, at any given period of time. Thus, there are, in Weber's line of thinking, the possibility of multiple class divisions, and the possibility for individuals to shift philosophical alliances, depending upon their perspective of their place in society, in relationship to God, as well as their perceptions of class alliance and their material existence in the world. Like Marx, Weber believes that religion can be a tool of economic production and a tool of the state. But this ability of religion to function has a distinct ideological mode, as well as exists as a tool in the generation of economic production and class conflict.

In other words, Weber sees not only 'economic human' as the functioning individual unit of society, or even as one component in the constant conflict-ridden progress of human historical affairs. Rather, human beings are not perfectly rational, nor can their intellectual and emotional desires and susceptibilities be predicted, according to their material interests. Rather, they function in a locus of particular forms of social interactions and beliefs that can produce conflict when differing interests are at war. But although these interests have economic effects, these interests are not necessarily only material in nature. In Weber, ideology exists not only to self-servingly justify the dominance of the bourgeois in contemporary society, unconsciously or not, as it does in Marx. Rather, ideological productions are also at war, and have a genuine emotional weight in fueling antagonism and belief systems about the correct ways to go about material productions. Religion and shared ideology creates both a sense of emotional solidarity between different societal elements in Weber, and also can become a weapon in economic affairs.

Religion can unite members of the lower classes, for instance, but it can also be used to dominate through hierarchy and status by the current ruling classes, and encourage individuals to remain in inferior social conditions. Religion for Marx famously was an "opiate" to revolt, for Weber is it more of a stimulant -- a stimulant in the form of Protestantism to economic production, a stimulant to class unity, and also a stimulant to the ruling class' willingness to solidify their 'natural' place, at the expense of other's welfare.

Durkheim was to expand upon Weber's theories regarding the importance of ideology in the history of human conflict. In contrast to Marx, Durkheim sees society not as dialectic of opposing interests, or even as a multifaceted interaction of differing material interests and ideologies, as does Weber. Rather, Durkheim was inclined to see all of society holistically, as a series of "ritual," anthropological performances in which all citizens take part. Economic life itself can be said to be a ritual of conflict. Religion, rather than being framed in philosophical terms, as it was in both Marx and Weber, is more concrete and 'enacted' for Durkheim in an anthropological sense. Rather than providing philosophical class unity, through the participation in commonly shared life, from a celebration after hay-making to a urban union revolt, ritual is endemic to society, and these ritual sites also provide the potential locus for connection and conflict.