Conflict Theory and Society
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the conflict theory view of society
- Explain Karl Marx’s concepts of class and alienation
Karl Marx and Conflict Theory
Karl Marx is certainly among the most significant social thinkers in recent history. While there are many critics of his work, it is still widely respected and influential. For Marx, society’s constructions were predicated upon the idea of “base and superstructure.” This term refers to the idea that a society’s economic character forms its base, upon which rests the cultural and social institutions, the superstructure. For Marx, it is the base (economy) that determines what a society will be like.
Additionally, Marx saw conflict in society as the primary means of change. Economically, he saw conflict existing between the owners of the means of production—the bourgeoisie—and the laborers, called the proletariat.
Marx maintained that these conflicts appeared consistently throughout history during times of social revolution. These revolutions, or “class antagonisms” as he called them, were a result of one class dominating another. Most recently, with the end of feudalism, a new revolutionary class he called the bourgeoisie dominated the laboring masses that he called the proletariat. The bourgeoisie were revolutionary in the sense that they represented a radical change in the structure of society. In Marx’s words, “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other—Bourgeoisie and Proletariat” (Marx and Engels 1848).
In the mid-nineteenth century, as industrialization was booming, bourgeois industrial employers, the “owners of the means of production” in Marx’s terms, became more and more exploitative toward the working class proletariat. The large manufacturers of steel were particularly ruthless, and their facilities were popularly dubbed “dark satanic mills” based on a poem by William Blake. Marx’s frequent co-author and friend, Friedrich Engels, wrote The Condition of the Working-Class in England (1844), which described the horrid conditions.
Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants. And such a district exists in the heart of the second city of England, the first manufacturing city of the world.
Add to that the long hours, the use of child labor, and exposure to extreme temperatures and toxic chemicals, and it is no wonder that Marx and Engels referred to capitalism, which is a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned b