As I have said elsewhere (and it cannot be remembered enough), human beings are interdependent, that is, they cannot survive or satisfy their needs and desires without the cooperation (willingly or unwillingly) of other individuals.
This fact has fundamental importance not only in economic relations, but in all human activities, and consequently in all human and social sciences. In fact, as George Herbert Mead taught us, the human mind is formed and developed as a tool for managing social relationships and interactions in order to meet the needs of the individual.
What makes human relationships most difficult and sometimes dangerous is what I call the need to prevail (of the power-needs class), a term by which I mean the tendency to prevail over others in hierarchies, exercise of authority, distribution of resources, choice of partners, private property, etc. In other words, every human being, if he could, would like to impose his will and worldview on others, that is, to induce them (by violence or nonviolent persuasion) to obey his orders, follow his directions, learn his teachings, cooperate in ways favorable to himself, etc.
Any cooperation, to be such, requires at least one party to do something in favor of the other. In this sense there must be a requester (i.e., one who asks the other for a good or service) and a supplier (i.e., one who procures and/or gives the requested good or service to the other). Obviously, the role of the supplier is normally onerous, while that of the requester is free. In other words, asking costs nothing, while providing always has a cost, except in games and sexual interactions, where responding to a request may involve enjoyment for the provider as well.
Any cooperative transaction is thus asymmetric in terms of charges (with the above exceptions) and can be sustained only if it involves a periodic exchange of roles in the sense that the requester becomes the provider and vice versa, as in the case of payment for a service rendered.
Cooperation is normally subject to factors that may make it difficult or impossible, such as the following.
If everyone is free to choose the cooperation partner, competition for choosing the most attractive (or most productive) partners and for being chosen by the most desirable partners should be expected. As a result, the less fortunate must settle for partners of little value or, in the worst case, find no partners at all.
The terms of cooperation may not be clear, so the parties understand the quality and quantity of the goods or services to be transferred and the associated compensation differently.
Covenants could be broken by one or both parties for any reason, justified or unjustified.
One party might overestimate its own capabilities and skills and underestimate those of its partner.
There may be different assessments of compliance with the rules of cooperation (obligations, prohibitions, rights, limits, etc.).
The covenant can be unilaterally cancelled if one of the contracting parties prefers to cooperate with a different partner, deemed more advantageous, without feeling obliged to remain loyal to the current one.
Indeed, it is very rare for a cooperative relationship to be free of more or less serious, resolvable or unsolvable conflicts or difficulties.
In order to avoid or resolve the aforementioned critical issues (where clarification or conciliation is not possible or not sufficient) and to force the desired cooperation, one of the parties may resort to violence (threatened or exercised) or to the intervention of a higher authority to act as arbiter and guarantor of justice.
In the second case, the question arises as to who should impersonate the guarantor authority, that is, who should occupy the various rungs of the hierarchies governing the community to which the parties belong. In this regard, it is normal for there to be competition for the highest rungs.
Since every human being (with few exceptions) tends to overestimate his own rights and underestimate those of others, to underestimate his own duties and overestimate those of others, competition to assert one’s own point of view is inevitable. On the other hand, cooperation is not sustainable without power (of one party over the other, or of a higher third authority) to impose or guarantee it.
Because of the above, I believe that human interactions are based on an intertwining of cooperation and competition, with competition being understood as the assertion of hierarchical superiority that can be accepted or rejected by the lower or disadvantaged party. In case of rejection, a situation of more or less violent conflict ensues that ends only with a reversal of positions or resignation of the rebellious party.
Cooperation and competition can take place both between individuals and between groups (families, political parties, organizations, companies, states, etc.).
In the intertwining of cooperation and competition, more or less lasting alliances can be formed between individuals and between groups, with the looming risk of betrayal, that is, the replacement of a partner or ally with a more advantageous one.
Ironically, it happens that cooperation, order and social peace, always threatened by unregulated competition, are protected and guaranteed by regulated competition, that is, by the political, religious and cultural hierarchies of the community, accepted as such by its members. That is to say, outside of a community (with its hierarchies and rules) no cooperation is possible that guarantees the satisfaction of human needs.
Man therefore has a vital need to belong to one or more communities. Consequently, the community (with its needs and psychic pressures) constitutes a mental agent or demon in the individual’s mind, as it influences his choices and defines his morality (consciously or unconsciously).
Next chapter: trilateral relationships, affective coherence, social valence.