The Minamata disease, a disease which produced severe nervous disorders and birth defects, was traced to the fact that the Chisso Chemical Company dumped mercury into a bay where Japanese villagers fished. The villagers of Minamata, where the company was located, refused to sue the chemical company. However, the residents of Niigata, a fishing village forty miles up the river from the factory, sued the chemical company. Which of the following explanations flows from the conflict paradigm?