ke concessions, _even against its will_, to the former
subordinate group in order to regain the help that they have refused to
render under the old conditions.[37]

The non-violent resisters themselves are also dependent upon inter-group
cooperation. Hence the outcome of this type of struggle usually depends
upon which of the two parties to the conflict can best or longest
dispense with the services of the other. If the resisters are less able
to hold out than the defenders, or if the costs of continued resistance
become in their eyes greater than the advantages which might be gained
by ultimate victory, they will lose their will to resist and their
movement will end in failure.

In all such struggles, both sides are greatly influenced by the opinions
of parties not directly concerned in the immediate conflict, but who
might give support or opposition to one side or the other depending upon
which could enlist their sympathies. Because of the deep-seated dislike
of violence, even in our western society, the side that first employs it
is apt to lose the sympathy of these third parties. As E. A. Ross has
put it:

"Disobedience without violence wins, _if it wins_, not so much by
touching the conscience of the masters as by exciting the sympathy
of disinterested onlookers. The spectacle of men suffering for a
principle _and not hitting back_ is a moving one. It obliges the
power holders to condescend to explain, to justify themselves. The
weak get a change of venue from the will of the stronger to the
court of public opinion, perhaps of world opinion."[38]

The stakes in such a struggle may be great or small. They range all the
way from the demand of a labor union for an increase of five cents an
hour in wages, to that of a whole people demanding political
independence from an imperial master, or a revolutionary change in the
economic or political power of the community.

The decision of the resisters to use non-violent means of opposition to
gain their ends may be based either upon principle or upon expediency.
In the former case they would say that the purposes they have in mind
would not be worth attaining if their achievement were to involve
physical violence toward other human beings; in the latter they would
act on the basis of the conclusion that in view of all the factors
involved their purposes could best be served by avoiding violence. These
factors would include the like