Simmel, Georg. Conflict and The Web of Group Affiliations.
Georg Simmel's book is really more of a series of essays dealing with the way people deal with conflict and organization under the rubric of society. For Simmel, conflict is the apotheosis of human relations, particularly when he suggest that there is an "uncanny ease with which hostility can be suggested" (p. 30). In other words, the drive toward hostility and conflict supports the desire for human power in both the macro and micro levels of societal interaction. Hostility and conflict, of course, are carried out in many different ways in the myriad of interpersonal relationships that make up a society. As civilization becomes more advanced, with rules and laws for a greater number of activities, conflict often takes on various legalism that serve to legitimize the activity over a series of seemingly endless agendas (pp. 35 7).
This is not to suggest that conflict and competition are in all cases pejorative terms. In fact, Simmel believes that conflict compels individual members of society to come to terms with both their inability to adequately socialize and a need to establish varying degrees of primacy (pp. 61 3). In the same way, societal customs serve to establish sets of normative behaviors by which conflict can take place. This serves the dual purpose of propelling people into new and challenging situations and protecting others against unneeded attack (pp. 94 6).
In the section on "The Web of Group Affiliations," Simmel further defines and limits competitive theory in light of the way groups interact with each other. Instead of simple individual conflict, Simmel postulates that group interaction takes the conflict and competition paradigm further into the areas of human resources and development (pp. 166 8). Finally, Simmel's task appears to be descriptive, however, his general thesis on conflict does establish certain sociological maxims. Among the ...