Sociology - Sociology Lecture # 18

Social conflict theory is a Marxist-based social theory which argues that individuals and groups (social classes) within society interact on the basis of conflict rather than consensus. Through various forms of conflict, groups will tend to attain differing amounts of material and non-material resources (e.g. the wealthy vs. the poor). More powerful groups will tend to use their power in order to retain power and exploit groups with less power. Conflict theorists view conflict as an engine of change, since conflict produces contradictions which are sometimes resolved, creating new conflicts and contradictions in an ongoing dialectic. In the classic example of historical materialism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that all of human history is the result of conflict between classes, which evolved over time in accordance with changes in society's means of meeting its material needs, i.e. changes in society's mode of production. Consider the relationship between the owner of a housing complex and a tenant in that same housing complex. A consensus theorist might suggest that the relationship between the owner and the tenant is founded on mutual benefit. In contrast, a conflict theorist might argue the relationship is based on a conflict in which the owner and tenant are struggling against each other. Their relationship is defined by the balance in their abilities to extract resources from each other, e.g. rent payments or a place to live. The bounds of the relationship are set where each is extracting the maximum possible amount of resources out of the other.