Society, however, is now in a transition stage—entering a pleasure economy. A large number of the sources of pain have been eliminated through the inventive and administrative phases of civilization. Dangerous beasts and reptiles, barbarous invasions, and superstitious interpretations are uncommon among the advanced human groups.
No nation, unfortunately, has been able to live under a pleasure economy. Its members have not built up sets of instincts, habits, and ideals that withstand the effects of a pleasure economy. Consequently, individuals and nations have fallen into lethargy, vice, and decay. The enemies in a pleasure economy are found within the individual; these are as yet unconquered under the allurements of a pleasure environment. In discussing the conflicts between these habits and ideals, Dr. Patten may err in implying that the race once was not in a pain economy and hence did not originally develop out of such an environment, but he nevertheless has analyzed an important societal fact in his pain-pleasure transition concept.
Another type of conflict theory of society is advanced by Thomas Nixon Carver. Professor Carver begins his analysis with a discussion of the conflict of human interests. Originally all conflicts were settled on the basis of might. But conflicts between persons who are beginning to think, sometimes lead one or each of the contending parties to a consideration of adjusting the conflict by other than physical strife. At this point the concept of justice begins to take form.
Justice, according to Dr. Carver, is “that system of adjusting conflicting interests which makes the group strong and progressive.”[XX-7] Virtue and strength are pronounced identical, and strength is defined “according to its ability to make itself universal.”
Conflict arises out of scarcity. Where two men want the same thing, conflict ensues. It is this antagonism of interests which produces moral problems and furnishes a basis of determining justice and injustice. One reason for the lack of supply of things which people seek is that in society human wants are unduly expended. If wants could be kept low and production high, an adaptation of people to things would take place which would greatly lessen conflict.
Conflicts take place in three different fields: (1) between man and nature, (2) between man and man, and (3) between the different interests of the same man.[XX-8] If there were no such conflicts, there would be no moral problems. The result would be paradise.
The institutions of property, the family, and the state have developed out of antagonism of interests, which in turn, as has been said, is the result of scarcity. If things were not scarce, no one would think of claiming property in anything. In a similar way the kinship group becomes desirous of possessing property and hence acquires unity. In asserting that the unifying principle in the family is an economic one, Dr. Carver espouses a theory of economic determinism. In fact, he holds that “the economic problem is the fundamental one, out of which all other social and moral problems have grown.”[XX-9]
Dr. Carver somewhat softens his rigorous social theories when he admits that there may be a few people in the world whose feeling of humanity is strong enough to overbalance an antagonism of interests and to lead them to treat the world as a normal individual treats his family.[XX-10] A world of such people would make a world of communism. But such a world is unthinkable, because world-loving people are social aberrations. The individual whose altruism is such that he gladly gives his body to a tiger, is not helping to transform the world into a world of saints but into a world of tigers.[XX-11] Extreme forms of benevolence and meekness constitute the very food upon which selfishness fattens.[XX-12]
Professor Carver, therefore, points out two sources of conflict, namely, scarcity of desirable things and self-centered appreciation. These two bases of conflict are fundamentally natural and normal. Conflicts appear, however, in a great variety of forms. This classification of the methods of struggling for existence is fourfold.[XX-13]
(1) There is a group of conflicts which are primarily destructive, such as war, robbery, dueling, sabotage, brawling. These conflicts are all crude, primitive, brutal. They represent man at his lowest ebb. They are militant in character, depending upon the individual’s power to destroy, to harm, or to inflict pain and injury.[XX-14]