Showing papers on "Rivalry published in 1970"

The Right-Left Division of South Indian Society

Abstract: What were the reasons for the development of a right-left division of South Indian castes? Why has this division become less of a focus of rivalry in modern times? This article uses observations collected in the Coimbatore region of Madras State between 1964 and 1966 to suggest that this earlier opposition expressed a fundamental economic principle: the distinction between castes who held direct or indirect rights in land and those who were primarily dependent on renumeration for specific professional services This contrast was expressed symbolically by the use of the terms “right” and “left,” and in day-to-day activity by the opposition of instrumental to ritualistic values in the evaluation of social status Use of the terms right and left had gradually become outmoded, due to substantial changes in economic organization The social correlates of this earlier opposition, however, have continued to endure in certain regions It is hypothesized that this persistence of social contrasts is related to the absence of Brahmans as an important land-owning group in such areas

Cooperation, association, and contest:

Abstract: Contest in sport occurs when at least two units (individuals or teams) compete under specific rules and agreements, for superiority in a nonrepresentative skill or strategy. The competitors are defined as equal at the beginning of the contest, and unequal at the end: one is the winner or gets the higher rank. In regard to the reward, which can be set by an outside party or organization as well as by the opponents themselves, a sport contest is a zero-sum game-what one side wins, the other loses. The reward ranges from a very low payoff in the form of recognition in a play group to a high payoff, e.g., prestige, or money in professional sports. At this point I do not want to open up a conceptual discussion whether a sport contest should be regarded as conflict or competition. While a broad conception of conflict would also include a sport contest, on a more limited basis one might point to the fact that a sport contest has a highly regulated formal structure, an agreed-upon outcome within a mutually accepted order, whereas this is not necessarily so in other forms of conflict (cf. Coser, 1956). A legal conflict or a war is by and large final after a settlement, whereas a sport contest settles a rivalry or championship only for a certain period of time; it is in a way

The Shaping of the Radical Consciousness in Provincial New York

Abstract: THE history of Revolutionary New York has settled into an uneasy ambiguity. Carl Becker's elucidation of revolutionary factionalism has been seriously challenged, but his challengers offer little in the way of a reasoned alternative.' It is now argued, contrary to Becker's estimate, that the suffrage was broad and representative, but at the same time the contending factions represented no particular constituencies. The politicos are described as self-serving opportunists; still the issues that divided them are certified as "bona fide." The contrariness of such recent scholarship finally resolves itself into a negation of revolutionary factionalism in which scholars are asked to believe that the Revolution in New York was merely an episode in the long-standing rivalry of the Livingston and De Lancey parties.2 "Histo-

Relations and rivalry: Interactions between Britain and the Netherlands in eighteenth-century science and technology.

Abstract: THE NETHERLANDS are small and dominated by water, providing, by virtue of their geographical location, a focus for many trade routes. Dutch history has long been influenced by these factors. The densely populated Netherlands straddle major river deltas giving access to the heart of Europe, and are surrounded by larger, militarily more powerful nations. Dutch prosperity, in these circumstances, has long depended upon trade and commerce, and upon a populace educated to take its place in a world of international competition, thriving on acquired skills and transmitting its culture where it lacked more tangible native resources. The history of the Netherlands is a history of relations and of transmission -of men and materials, of books and ideas, of science and technology. Dutch relations with Britain have played an important part in this history-near neighbours competing for world trade, sometimes by force of arms, mutually supporting in the intellectual realm, frequently related by education and for a while by a common monarchy, the Netherlands were a favoured refuge for Englishmen in turbulent times, and a willing medium for the reception and transmission of British ideas. Nor was the benefit one-sided. In agriculture and engineering, navigation and business practice, printing and scientific education, Britain gained greatly from her Dutch neighbours. The richness of the interaction between the two countries offers an area for study which is fruitful for the historian, whatever his chosen perspective. In 1964 the Victoria and Albert Museum provided a splendid introduction to this wealth in its exhibition, \"The Orange and the Rose\". Historians of science could profitably pursue and develop this introduction. So far, they have scarcely tried, perhaps because there is still a temptation to approach the history of science as if it dealt only with great men, and with their triumphs in the face of obstinate foolish reaction. The historiographical area I wish to consider has few such figures. Again, the very richness of the interaction may have provided a strong disincentive to serious study, requiring a broader-based approach than is provided by internalist or intellectualist history of science. Scientific relations between England and Holland in the eighteenth century (I shall allow myself to stray slightly beyond the confines of that century) involve a good deal of the social history of science, entangled with fashions and politics as much

Arno Mayer's "Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870-1956"--an Inadequate Model of Human Behavior, National Conflict, and Historical Change

Abstract: I am in general disagreement with Professor Arno J. Mayer's essay "Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870-1956: A Research Assignment,"' which casually dismisses several central issues. He has wisely eschewed the "accident" theory of war in favor of a theory of social and political causes. No longer should historians be able to assert blithely that war was unintended, as does R. R. Palmer three times on the same page.2 Of the antecedents of World War I, Palmer writes: "Europe went off its course"; "Europe stumbled in 1914 into disaster"; "Europe went astray." But if Mayer reminds us of the need for historical determinism and causality, if he is too insightful to accept the verbal deception of referring to war as an "outbreak," he nevertheless naively subscribes to the eighteenthcentury faith in the rationality of men's motives and actions. There is something obvious and vital missing in Mayer's list of factors and conflicts historians should take into account in seeking the causes of war: "political, social, economic, and ideological" (p. 298). Whereas all of these factors are important and ought not be neglected, Mayer has denied the psychological dimensions of war. I suggest to Mayer and to your readers that his dismissal of the "fashionable focus on the aggressive drives of modern man, those same drives which are said to feed nonviolent forms of conflict, such as competition, opposition, and rivalry," is premature. With all due respect to his strategic sagacity, it is time that Carl vog.,Clausewitz be superseded as a psychological, if not as a political, analyst of war. Indeed, if Mayer chooses to ignore Sigmund Freud's profound essays on World War I-"Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" (1915) and "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917)-his expressions during the

Experiment in Containment: The United States Steel Embargo and Japan, 1917-1918

Abstract: 1 One of the first to articulate clearly the containment concept for Asia was A. Whitney Griswold, The Far Eastern Policy of the United States (New York, 1938). By far the most able of the Lansing-Ishii studies is Burton F. Beers, Vain Endeavor, Robert Lansing's Attempt to End the American-Japanese Rivalry (Durham, North Carolina, 1962). Analyses of the consortium tactic have received less play. The reports of actual participants still provide the best source of information. See, for instance, Paul S. Reinsch, An American Diplomat in China (New York, 1922), and Thomas W. Lamont, Across World Frontiers (New York, 1950). Current studies in progress by Lloyd C. Gardner ("Progressive Diplomacy, 1900-1921") and Marilyn Young ("American International Cooperation") should be consulted when available. The motives for intervention have been "warmly debated," as aptly put by Robert M. Smith in his The Great Departure: The United States and World War I, 1914-1920 (New York, 1965). At stake here is whether Wilson's despatch of American troops was to contain Japan (the traditional view) or Bolshevik Russia. For the best treatment of the former, see Betty Miller Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920 (Durham, North Carolina, 1956). William Appleman Williams presents a convincing case for the latter viewpoint in American-Russian Relations, 1781-1947 (New York, 1952). Smith's conclusion that intervention represented an effort to deal with both Japan and Russia seems the most acceptable.

Wall Street Lawyer in the Provinces

Abstract: This is a case study of two large firms in Pittsburgh. Like the firms on Wall Street, they are underbureaucratized. This is explained in terms of the liberal economic and political ideology of lawyers, the necessity to mitigate alienation and rivalry in the large law firms, and such probable employee responses to further bureaucratization as increased turnover, decreased productivity, and even trade unionism.

Intelligence in Industry: The Uses and Abuses of Experts

Abstract: In their vision of the managerial revolution, Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen pictured experts coming to power by virtue of their indispensability. The reality, not so dramatic, is nevertheless critical for an understanding of the main drift of modern society. Coalitions of top managers and experts, each acquiring some of the skills of the other, now make increasing use of systematic technical and ideological intelligence. The structural roots of intelligence failures—hierarchy, specialization and rivalry, and centralization—become more prominent. The new technology produces a surfeit of information, poorly digested or lost in the system. Big policy decisions are often made in an atmosphere of urgency and uncertainty, the effects of which can be both good and bad. Alert executives, therefore, reshape administrative structures to smooth the flow of intelligence; more important, they bypass the machinery and seek firsthand exposure to unofficial intelligence sources both inside and outside the organization. ...

Soviet and Chinese Involvement in Southern Asia

Abstract: While the ussr and China are expressing their deep mutual antagonisms in a direct confrontation by military pressures and hostile propaganda, which attract wide attention, they are also engaging in less publicized but intensely competitive struggles to penetrate the Third World. Each is seeking to establish affinitive revolutionary states throughout the developing areas, using methods intended to frustrate its rival's designs as much as possible. The main region in contest is southern Asia. Strategically and because of the vulnerabilities of its states, southern Asia comes next after the Middle East as a major area of engagement for the Soviet Union, and is of primary importance for China. Either power, if able to make substantial diplomatic or revolutionary advances in this part of the world, will be well placed to further its global designs at the expense of its socialist antagonist and of the west. The strategies of the two communist powers differ greatly. Peking's, reflecting the extremism of the Cultural Revolution, is narrowly conceived, militant to a degree that can alienate potential allies, mostly uninterested in the advantages of interaction with 'bourgeois' governments, and rather inflexible. The ussr's method of engagement is fairly comprehensive and relatively pragmatic; it seeks to promote gradual revolutionary change by influencing broad ranges of 'progressive' forces in friendly southern Asian countries through cultural and economic diplomacy, as well as by directly assisting the national communist movements. The Soviet approach is more realistic and is supported by more resources. A change in the Asian balance due to a communist victory over the Saigon government and a contraction of the usa's security role in the region, however, could lead to more substantial gains for China than for the ussr. I The rivalry between the ussr and China in the Third World during the early 1960s seemed to express negotiable differences regarding the