Competition and Conflict

Competition

Competition is a form of social interaction. Today is an era of competition. It is people's struggle for possession, power, money goods, status or love.People try their best to get rewards by surpassing their rivals. The competitor is more focused on achieving certain goals or rewards. More the competition leads to more rivalry and it leads to conflict and chaos in most of the cases.Competition is considered to be one of the most fundamental forms of the social struggle. 

Sutherland, Woodward, and Maxwell state that “Competition is an impersonal, unconscious, continuous struggle between individuals or groups for satisfaction which because of their limited supply, all may not have.” 

And also in the words of Biesanz “competition is the striving of two or more persons for the same goal which is limited so that all cannot share it.”

Competition aims not to destroy the opponent as it is not a coercion. The competitors frequently observe the rules of competition which is helpful in easily eliminating the force and also the fraud. If one of these rules are to be broken it is likely to become a conflict. Competition is not entirely unrestricted.

Characteristics of Competition:

The following are characteristics determine the nature of a competition:

(i) Competition is considered to be an impersonal struggle:

Park and Burgess have also defined the term competition to be the interaction of the people without any help of a particular type of the social contact in general form. Again in the other words, it is known to be an inter-individual struggle that is totally impersonal. Competition is not so much directed towards any of the individual or any of the group in a particular. And also the competitors are not in contact and do not know one another.

Competition is useful for those parts that are not personalized. When the individuals tend to compete with one other in particular and also not on the personal level but such as the members of some group which includes business, social as well as the cultural organizations, people of the tribes, and nations, political parties etc. Hence, the competition is generally called as impersonal.

(ii) Competition is an unconscious activity:

Competition usually takes place at an unconscious level. Students lets say for an example, they do not conceive their classmates as the competitors despite the fact that there consists of a certain number of honours available. 

Students must be conscious of certain type of the competition and also they must be much concerned about their marks in their college. It just remains that the competition as their attention is primarily focused towards providing the certain type of reward or goals for a situation they strive than on the competitor. If there occurs any type of the shift in certain type of the interest from the objects of competition to the competitors it is called as the rivalry or any kind of the personal competition.

(iii) Competition is universal:

Competition is found in every society and in every age. It is found in every group. As the things people wish to secure are limited in supply, there is competition all-round for securing them.

Conflict

Conflict sees a social life of a people as a competition and focuses on the distribution of resources, power, and inequality. Karl Marx is considered as the 'father' of social conflict theory. The famous theorist Karl Marx gave birth to the conflict theory in1818-1883. Marx provided a theory of capitalism which said that human beings are basically productive and in order to survive, people have to work.There occur two relationships, between the poor and the rich.The disputes between the owners and the workers were the major topic of conflict theory. In an industrial, wealthy, society, the rich were the one who used to suppress the poor for their personal benefits.The origination of the conflict theory was from a famous sociologist Karl Marx and he focused on the causes as well as the consequences of the class conflict between the bourgeoisie who were known to be the owners of production and also the capitalists. Here, the proletariat that means the one who are working class and also the poor. Marx theorized that this system focuses on the economic, social, and political implications.

References

Bhandari, L. P. (2015).Fundamentals of Sociology.Kathmandu: Buddha.

Sumner,W.G Folkways. New York: Ginn, 1906

Tishler, Henry L. 3013. Introduction to Sociology, 11^thEd. Cengage Advantage Books

Openstax College, Introduction to Sociology. Open Stax College. 21 June 2012