( The author is professor of Economics and fellow of the Center for International Affairs. The following article is from a speech delivered 18 months ago, and is reprinted with permission of the publisher from Cybernetics, Simulation, and Conflict Resolution, edited by Douglas E. Knight. Huntington W. Curtis and Lawrence J. Fogel. Copyright 1971 Spartan Books. )

Like everything else a university is unique, at least to those whose careers are involved in it. But when a unique institution suffers an unfamiliar ailment, the prognosis is up for grabs. The question is not, what is a university, but what is a university like?

Most of us, whatever side we are on, have an image or analogy in mind when thinking about "campus confrontation." Even the title of this session, "confrontation," constrains our image and our vocabulary and, as a result, our thinking.

Students often have strong images. The SDS seems to believe that the 1969 occupation of University Hall at Harvard University was obviously justified-not merely justified, but obviously justified-so long as it is acknowledged that it was a political act. They further believe that to prove a political act it is enough to show that it had political results. The occupation did have political results. I have never understood why the political motives are a good excuse, but I am convinced that some students think so. Somewhere there must be an analogy so obvious to them that they are not aware that it is an analogy, and so obscure to me that I do not know how to refute the point if I am right that their analogy is wrong.

Analogies other than those I chose exist. There is that of a consumer movement, or of a church. I am not sure that mine are the closest analogies to campus violence; they are merely three that I have found suggestive. (Three is better than one because their very plurality insists that we are only exploring.)

A prison, in Erving Goffman's terminology, is a "total institution," like a nunnery or a boot camp or a mental hospital. The bargaining power of prisoners looks pretty small. They cannot recruit help from outside, communications are restricted, and they have no alumni association that looks out for them. There's not much they can withhold from the institution; much of their work is "make-work." They even have poor opportunities for violence because so much of the time they are locked up. But once in awhile they start some.

Often it begins in one of those moments of semi-freedom, like meal time. Once they become violent, there's not much they can do except occupy a building and take hostages. Once you have a building and some hostages, what do you do next? You announce your demands. But suppose you had no plans. You are like the fisherman with an enchanted sturgeon on his line: quick, make three wishes.

Early in the 1950's there had been few prison riots, and prisoners were poor at knowing what to demand once they had a building and some hostages. Gradually, over the first dozen riots, the grapevine worked and experience was shared, culture accumulated, and when prisoners had their buildings and their hostages they knew where to look for typewriters and mimeograph machines, how to draft demands, how to organize. Negotiations became stylized.

Put yourself in their position. What can you demand? Not anything that requires large amounts of money, because there's nobody available to command large amounts of money. You cannot call a legislature into session to change the budget because some cons have some hostages in a building. Demands have to be made on a tight time schedule. You can't stay there long, either working out your demands or making sure that agreements can be enforced.

One thing is easy to think of-amnesty. Once you're in the building and the fun is over, safety is important, and amnesty is attractive, especially to the leaders, who typically formulate the demands. There is something else you may control: whom you negotiate with. You can specify that it be the warden or the governor or the publisher of a newspaper or someone from the Prison Reform Society or the chaplain. They don't have to comply, but you don't have to negotiate. You can often demand publicity. Sometimes you can demand subsequent investigation.

You can probably, in a hurry, think of particular individuals whom you would like fired, demoted, or punished. And often you need one demand-and can think of one-that is related in some way to the original outburst, so that it retroactively identifies the violence with your demands: better food, if it started in the dining hall; more exercise time, if it started in the exercise yard; better working conditions, if it started in a workshop. And there usually has to be at least one demand that dramatizes brutality or injustice, even nominal acceptance of which legitimizes the violence. This may be coupled with the demand that a particular individual be fired.

It is hard to get pledges that the demands will be kopt once the hostages are released and the participants are back in their cells. This is one reason for publicity, for calling in referees.

It does not sound altogether different from occupied buildings on campus. My impression is that students who have occupied campus buildings converged fairly quickly on a standardized set of demands, more efficiently as successive occupations took place though different individuals were involved. Incidentally, the convergence of prisoner demands is strong evidence that "outside agitators" need not be present in order that a pattern become visible in the conduct of successive confrontations.

An important difference between the prison and the campus is that there is not much future in a prolonged confrontation in prison. If negotiations break down, or don't start, you've had it. It is hard to make a career out of failure there. There may be those on campus who have an interest in prolonging the violence or the occupation or the confrontation, who can look forward to careers built on the social disruption they have caused; there is no comparable career in prison martyrdom, yet.

Apparently in the prison situation, as in many campus situations, it is not the demands that motivate the violence, but the other way around. Confrontation generates demands. Violence was frequently unexpected by those who took part in it, even by its leaders. Afterwards the act has to be legitimized by being incorporated into the demands; the domands must project the image backwards, so that, whatever the violence was about, it is part of a movement and not an impromptu act.