"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask."
Following a passage that contrasted a meek heavenly wisdom and a jealous and selfish worldly wisdom, James poses a rhetorical question, seeking us to consider the source of our fighting. Then surprisingly he doesn't identify it as selfishness or jealousy but goes deeper, identifying the very source of those two problems. We argue and fight with each other because we are at war. We aren't at war with other people. Other people are just the casualties of war. We are at war with ourselves. Our personal desires for pleasure (and/or perhaps power) wars against us. We fight with others because we are losing the battle with ourselves.
When the desire controls us and we cannot fulfill it, we seek any means that we think will bring us the desired end. People resort to fighting or murder because they fail to keep their desires from turning into selfishness or jealousy. This is self-destructive. But the real irony is the reason we cannot attain our desire. "You have not, because you do not ask." In our impassioned desperation, we don't bother looking to God, but we resort to taking from man. For this reason, we will not get what we want.
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