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forms, but never their essential character, the exploitation of the weak by the strong. 16 To Ratzenhofer society is an area of interests which first form individuals, then groups, then wider groups, and struggle perpetually for the realization of the domi- nant interest. Each interest forms a struggle-group in which leadership and authority are developed under the reacting influ- ence of the led. 17 Novicow elaborates the idea of conflict which he conceives as gradually passing from the crude form of vio- lence and robbery, through exploitation, monopoly, and privilege, to the higher form of mental conflict discussion. 18 Sighele in his study of sects and parties also makes much of the role of antagonism and struggle. 19 Marx utilizes the same general idea in his famous doctrine of class-conflict. 20 Loria, too, discovers everywhere the dominance of class interests with no concern for the common welfare. 21 Vaccaro, on the other hand, while recog- nizing the prevalence of upper-class control, describes the gradual mitigation of this struggle through concession until a larger social unity is achieved. 22 Here he approaches Spencer, who naturally makes much of group-conflict in the early stages of social evolu- tion, but almost wholly overlooks in modern life the persistence under many disguises of these " struggle-groups." 23 The funda- mental difference between the unity school and the conflict school is as to the degree to which unity has been attained. Of those who see chiefly group-struggle in society only one, Gumplowicz, refuses to admit any progress toward an ultimate harmony. The rest, while emphasizing the struggle phase, leave room for a more or less remote possibility that this conflict may be in
"GUMPLOWICZ, La lutte des races {tr. BAYE), pp. 159 f. and 340.
"RATZENHOFER, Die sociologische Erkenntniss (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 252 f . ; Wesen und Zweck der Politik (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 657 f.
u Novicow, Les littles entre sociflfs humaines et Icurs phases successive* (Paris, 1893).
" SIGHELE, La psychologic des sectes (Paris, 1898).
" MAKX, Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Introduction, p. v.
11 LORIA, Les bases cconomiqucs de la constitution sociale, 2d ed. ( Paris, 1893), PP- i7 *
- VACCARO, Les bases sociologiques du droit et de I'etat (Paris, 1898), pp. 79 f.
" Cf. Si MM EL, "The Persistence of Social Groups," AMERICAN JOURNAL or SOCIOLOGY, March, May, and July, 1898.
