Societies characterized by Gemeinschaft (community) relations are homogeneous, largely based on kinship and organic ties, and have a moral cohesion often founded on common religious sentiment. These relationships are dissolved by the division of labour, individualism and competitiveness; that is, by the growth of Gesellschaft (association) relationships. Whereas Tonnies regarded Gemeinschaft as the expression of real, organized life, Gesellschaft is an artificial social arrangement based on the conflict of egoistic wills.

Buttressing further, Gemeinschaft refers to relationships which are spontaneous and ‘affective’, tend to be related to a person’s overall social status, are repeated or long-enduring (as in relationships with kin), and occur in a context involving cultural homogeneity. Characteristically, these are the relationships within families and within simpler, small-scale and pre-modern societies. Gesellschaft refers to relationships which are individualistic, impersonal, competitive, calculative and contractual, often employing explicit conceptions of rationality and efficiency. Relationships of this are characteristic of modern urban industrial societies in which the division of labour is advanced. For Tonnies, such relationships involved a loss of the naturalness and mutuality of earlier Gemeinschaft relationships.

Tonnies argues that social relations are the products of human will; he identified two types of will: (a) natural will (Wesenwille), and (b) rational will (Kurwille).

Natural will is the expression of instinctual needs, habit, conviction or inclination. Rational will involves instrumental rationality in the selection of means for ends. Whereas natural will is organic and real, rational will is conceptual and artificial. These forms of will correspond to the distinction between community and association, since communal life is the expression of natural will and associational life is a consequence of rational will.

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