ABSTRACT

The roots of conflict theory reach back in time to Hobbes and the formation of the modern nation-State, Marsilius of Padua in the medieval world, and Thrasymachus, Socrates and Plato in ancient Greek society. To place conflict outside the framework of social structure, or to go beyond that and see conflict as necessarily destructive of the social organism, is to place a definite premium on social equilibrium. If consensus and conflict occupy the same social universe and logically imply one another, what is the basis for suggesting the empirical superiority of conflict theory as an analytical tool? Consensus theory has done nothing to melt the present freezing of attitudes on either a national or international scale. Cooperation concerns the settlement of problems in terms which make possible the continuation of differences and even fundamental disagreements. The unity required to evolve such a sociological theory of cooperation is methodological rather than systematic.