[35] On the discipline required see Gregg, Power of Non-Violence, 266-294. Lewis, to prove the ineffectiveness of non-violence, quotes Joad: "There have been only too many occasions in history in which the meeting of violence by non-violence has led not to the taming of the violent, but to the extinction of the non-violent." The Case Against Pacifism, 184.
IV. NON-VIOLENT COERCION
In the last section we were considering the non-violent resistance of groups which had no choice in their means of opposing the will of an invader, but who would have chosen violence if the weapons of violence had been available to them. In those cases there was no question but that the choice rested upon the expediency of the moment rather than upon principle. In the cases of non-violence by necessity the purposes of the resisting groups were defensive and negative, designed to induce the withdrawal of the invader rather than to induce him to follow actively a different policy.
In this section we are concerned with the action of groups designed to modify the conduct of others in order to promote their own ideals. We are concerned with people who presumably have a possible choice of methods to accomplish their purposes. They might rely upon persuasion and education of their opponents through emotional or intellectual appeals; but such action would have no coercive element in it, so we shall consider it in a later section. Or they might attempt to coerce their opponents, either by violent or non-violent means. For the present we are interested only in the latter through its usual manifestations: the strike, the boycott, or other organized movements of non-cooperation.[36]
At first sight such methods do not appear to be coercive in nature, since they involve merely an abstention from action on the part of the group offering the resistance. Actually they are coercive, however, because of the absolute necessity for inter-group cooperation in the maintenance of our modern social, economic, and political systems. Under modern conditions the group against whom the resistance is directed must have the cooperation of the resisting group in order to continue to survive. When that cooperation is denied, the old dominant group is forced to make concessions, even against its will, to the former subordinate group in order to regain the help that they have refused to render under the old conditions.[37]
The non-violent resisters themselves are also dependent upon inter-group cooperation. Hence the outcome of this type of struggle usually depends upon which of the two parties to the conflict can best or longest dispense with the services of the other. If the resisters are less able to hold out than the defenders, or if the costs of continued resistance become in their eyes greater than the advantages which might be gained by ultimate victory, they will lose their will to resist and their movement will end in failure.
In all such struggles, both sides are greatly influenced by the opinions of parties not directly concerned in the immediate conflict, but who might give support or opposition to one side or the other depending upon which could enlist their sympathies. Because of the deep-seated dislike of violence, even in our western society, the side that first employs it is apt to lose the sympathy of these third parties. As E. A. Ross has put it:
"Disobedience without violence wins, if it wins, not so much by touching the conscience of the masters as by exciting the sympathy of disinterested onlookers. The spectacle of men suffering for a principle and not hitting back is a moving one. It obliges the power holders to condescend to explain, to justify themselves. The weak get a change of venue from the will of the stronger to the court of public opinion, perhaps of world opinion."[38]
The stakes in such a struggle may be great or small. They range all the way from the demand of a labor union for an increase of five cents an hour in wages, to that of a whole people demanding political independence from an imperial master, or a revolutionary change in the economic or political power of the community.