Manifest bases for conflict may be there in actual inequities in education, but the possibilities for conflict are further increased as the result of… - Bertram Raven

Parents control their children in the interests of the family, universities exercise control over professors and students, government exercises control over citizens, and religions control their adherents... Society's need for social control was stated most dramatically by Hobbes (1651/1958), who observed that in the "natural" state (without social control), as each person attempted to satisfy his/her individual needs and desires at the expense of others, humankind would be in a war of all against all, such that life would be "nasty, brutish, and short."

While going through training in the army, I was very puzzled about the number of things which we had to do... why learn to lace our shoes a particular way, walk back and forth through puddles, salute commissioned officers... Only much later did I realize that, in audition to combat training, basic training was a stage setting device, especially for the establishment of legitimate position power. Those in command were not ready to put their trust in informational power: Particularly in combat conditions, officers would not be able to give us reasons. Coercive power, under limited surveillance, would also not be sufficient. We must learn, as Tennyson said of the Light Brigade, that when ordered to do something, "ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die." So it was important that we were ordered to do meaningless things, and learn to obey legitimate authority without question, while coercive power was still hovering in the background.

under reward power, communications are likely to consist of promises and exchanges of information regarding the positive outcomes each side has in store for the other, thus increasing the likelihood of a mutually satisfactory agreement.