According to Karl Marx, Class Conflict Leads to What?

You learned in the previous module that conflict theory looks at social club as a contest for express resource. This perspective is a macro-level approach most identified with the writings of German philosopher and sociologist Karl Marx (1818–1883), who saw society every bit existence made upwardly of individuals in different social classes who must compete for social, material, and political resources such equally food and housing, employment, education, and leisure time. Social institutions like government, education, and religion reflect this competition in their inherent inequalities and help maintain the diff social structure.

Karl Marx (1818–1883) is certainly among the about significant social thinkers in contempo history. While in that location are many critics of his work, it is even so widely respected and influential. For Marx, order's constructions were predicated upon the idea of "base and superstructure." This term refers to the thought that a club'southward economic character forms its base, upon which rests the culture and social institutions, the superstructure. For Marx, information technology is the base of operations (economy) that determines what a gild will exist like.

Karl Marx and Conflict Theory

Karl Marx asserted that all elements of a society'southward structure depend on its economical structure.

Additionally, Marx saw conflict in society as the main means of modify. Economically, he saw conflict existing between the owners of the means of production—the suburbia —and the laborers, called the proletariat .

Marx maintained that these conflicts appeared consistently throughout history during times of social revolution. These revolutions or "grade antagonisms" as he chosen them, were a outcome of one class dominating another. Most recently, with the terminate of feudalism, a new revolutionary class he called the bourgeoisie dominated the proletariat laborers. 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 swell hostile camps, into two great classes straight facing each other—Bourgeoisie and Proletariat" (Marx and Engels 1848).

In the mid-nineteenth century, equally industrialization was booming, industrial employers, the "owners of the means of production" in Marx'south terms, became more and more than exploitative toward the working class. The big manufacturers of steel were particularly ruthless, and their facilities became popularly dubbed "satanic mills" based on a poem past William Blake. Marx'south colleague and friend, Frederick Engels, wrote The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, which described in particular the horrid conditions.

Such is the Onetime Boondocks of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to acknowledge that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black plenty to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the disobedience of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single commune, containing at least twenty to thirty grand inhabitants. And such a commune exists in the middle of the second city of England, the showtime manufacturing city of the world.

Add to that the long hours, the use of child labor, and exposure to extreme conditions of heat, cold, and toxic chemicals, and it is no wonder that Marx and Engels referred to commercialism, which is a way of organizing an economic system and so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than past the government, as the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie."

Karl Marx (left) and Friedrich Engels (right) analyzed differences in social power between "accept" and "have-not" groups. (Photo (a) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of George Lester/Wikimedia Commons)

For Marx, what we do defines who we are. In historical terms, in spite of the persistent nature of i form dominating another, some element of humanity existed. There was at least some connection betwixt the worker and the product, augmented by the natural conditions of seasons and the ascension and fall of the sun, such as we see in an agricultural society. But with the bourgeoisie revolution and the rising of industry and capitalism, the worker now worked for wages alone. His relationship to his efforts was no longer of a homo nature, but based on artificial atmospheric condition.

Marx described mod society in terms of alienation. Breach refers to the status in which the individual is isolated and divorced from his or her society, work, or the sense of self. Marx defined 4 specific types of alienation.

1. Alienation from the product of one'southward labor. An industrial worker does non accept the opportunity to relate to the production he labors on. Instead of training for years as a watchmaker, an unskilled worker can get a job at a watch manufactory pressing buttons to seal pieces together. The worker does non care if he is making watches or cars, simply that the task exists. In the aforementioned mode, a worker may not even know or care what production to which he is contributing. A worker on a Ford assembly line may spend all day installing windows on car doors without e'er seeing the residual of the machine. A cannery worker tin can spend a lifetime cleaning fish without e'er knowing what product they are used for.
2. Alienation from the process of i's labor. A worker does not control the conditions of her job because she does not own the means of production. If a person is hired to work in a fast food restaurant, she is expected to make the food the way she is taught. All ingredients must be combined in a particular order and in a particular quantity; there is no room for creativity or change. An employee at Burger King cannot make up one's mind to change the spices used on the fries in the same way that an employee on a Ford assembly line cannot make up one's mind to place a car's headlights in a dissimilar position. Everything is decided past the bourgeoisie who then dictate orders to the laborers.
3. Alienation from others. Workers compete, rather than cooperate. Employees vie for time slots, bonuses, and job security. Even when a worker clocks out at night and goes home, the competition does not end. As Marx commented in The Communist Manifesto (1848), "No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon past the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker."
4. Alienation from ane'south cocky. A last outcome of industrialization is a loss of connectivity between a worker and her occupation. Because in that location is nothing that ties a worker to her labor, there is no longer a sense of self. Instead of beingness able to accept pride in an identity such equally being a watchmaker, automobile architect, or chef, a person is but a cog in the auto.

Taken as a whole, then, alienation in modern guild means that an individual has no control over his life. Even in feudal societies, a person controlled the manner of his labor as to when and how it was carried out. But why, then, does the modern working class not rise upward and insubordinate? (Indeed, Marx predicted that this would be the ultimate consequence and collapse of commercialism.)

Video: Conflict Theory and Alientation

Review Marx's ideas nearly alienation and the four types of alienation in the post-obit video.

An assembly line worker installs car parts with the aid of complex machinery. Has technology fabricated this type of labor more or less alienating? (Photo courtesy of Carol Highsmith/Wikimedia Commons)

Another idea that Marx developed is the concept of false consciousness . False consciousness is a status in which the beliefs, ideals, or credo of a person are non in the person's ain best interest. In fact, it is the ideology of the dominant class (here, the bourgeoisie capitalists) that is imposed upon the proletariat. Ideas such as the emphasis of competition over cooperation, or of hard work beingness its own advantage, clearly benefit the owners of industry. Therefore, workers are less likely to question their place in guild and assume individual responsibleness for existing conditions.

In order for gild to overcome false consciousness, Marx proposed that it exist replaced with form consciousness , the awareness of one'due south rank in society. Instead of existing as a "course in itself," the proletariat must become a "class for itself" in club to produce social modify (Marx and Engels 1848), meaning that instead of only being an inert strata of gild, the class could go an advocate for social improvements. Only one time society entered this country of political consciousness would it exist prepare for a social revolution.

Further Inquiry

I of the most influential pieces of writing in modern history was Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto. Visit this site to read the original document that spurred revolutions around the world.

Retrieve It Over

1. Recall of the means workers are alienated from the product and process of their jobs. How tin can these concepts be applied to students and their educations?
2. Use Marx's argument to explain a current social issue such as the Occupy movement. Does his theory agree up nether modern scrutiny?

Do

1. The Protestant work ethic is based on the concept of predestination, which states that ________.

1. performing skillful deeds in life is the only manner to secure a spot in Heaven
2. salvation is only achievable through obedience to God
3. no person can be saved before he or she accepts Jesus Christ as his or her savior
4. God has already chosen those who volition be saved and those who will be damned

2. The concept of the iron muzzle was popularized by which of the following sociological thinkers?

1. Max Weber
2. Karl Marx
3. Émile Durkheim
4. Friedrich Engels

3. According to Marx, the _____ own the means of product in a society.

1. proletariat
2. vassals
3. suburbia
4. anomie

4. Which of the following best depicts Marx's concept of alienation from the process of 1's labor?

1. A supermarket cashier always scans store coupons before company coupons because she was taught to do it that way.
2. A businessman feels that he deserves a raise, only is nervous to inquire his director for i; instead, he comforts himself with the idea that hard work is its own reward.
3. An associate professor is afraid that she won't exist given tenure and starts spreading rumors nigh 1 of her associates to brand herself await meliorate.
4. A structure worker is laid off and takes a job at a fast food restaurant temporarily, although he has never had an interest in preparing food before.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-conflict-theory/

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