Conflict Theory | Sociology | Chegg Tutors

hi I'm here today to talk to you about conflict theory basically what conflict theory says is that human behavior particularly in a social context is influenced by or results from conflicts between competing groups this theory was originated by Karl Marx in the mid-1800s and he believed that the conflicts arose between two main classes or groups of people those two classes were the bourgeoisie which are the people that owned the means of production in other words people who owned a factory or owned a large fortune 500 company or even a smaller company just people who own the tool that they used to make money and the other group is the proletariat which are the people who don't own those things the people who work in the factories the people who work for the other companies Marx believed that these two classes are always in conflict he believed at the upper class or the bourgeoisie exploit the lower class or the proletariat for their own economic gain he said that resources were unjust unjustly distributed and that this kind of conflict was always inherent in a capitalist system so any kind of system where you are buying and selling relying on economic machines basically like the big companies you're going to have this kind of conflict he believed that as the socio-economic conditions for the workers of the proletariat got worse that they would eventually develop something called a class consciousness this class consciousness would be when they realized that they were being exploited or used essentially by this upper class for reasons that weren't directly benefiting the lower class and then after they realized that they would then revolt and demand changes mark said that unless the changes completely got rid of a capitalist system that this conflict would continue to exist since Marx authored this theory it has expanded to cover other kinds of conflict beside class conflict it's covered too it's expanded to cover things like race gender sexuality basically anything you could find where people will not always be on the same level playing field basically essentially the different social groups have different amounts of power those with the larger amounts of power maintain their power by controlling the institutions in our society so government religion schools etc and then promoting their message messages that benefit them and help them keep their power throughout the culture of the society and then at the same time the groups and the people with this little power are struggling to be heard and to gain the resources that they need in a fair way let me give you an example to help illustrate this for you so kind of a current events type thing if you follow the news you probably heard about the Flint water crisis in Michigan basically what happened there was that a community was poisoned by toxic drinking water that had been polluted with lead now Flint is a community made up mostly of lower-class people who are of minority racial group so those other than white and people were starting to look at the way that exposure to things like hazardous environmental pollution is shaped by race and class this is an example of conflict theory because those in the lower class are being exploited their health is being exploited the water that they drink is poisoned and they can't do anything about it because they don't have the power that those who made those decisions the led to the poisoned water had so therefore their low power is conflicting with those in the high power and this leads to them being more likely to be exposed exposed to excuse me to dangerous environmental pollution and actually after this happened a recent study found that those who are of a minority race so again anything other than white when and low-income so usually anything under about fifty thousand dollars give or take depending on the community in the area of the country that you're in if you are in either of those groups so typically historically low power groups part of the proletariat you could say you are much more likely to be exposed to hazardous pollution because those in power or the bourgeoisie aren't paying attention to or don't maybe don't care about the effects of their actions on the people in the lower class because they're exploiting them in order to gain things for themselves that's a pretty good recent event example of conflict theory so to summarize conflict theory was developed by Karl Marx started out in the 1800's mid 1800s basically what it says is that human behavior is influenced by or results from conflicts between competing groups these competing groups could be race they could be class they could be gender any number of groups there can be conflict and this conflict can result in change when the groups especially the lower groups realize that they are getting the worst deal and they decide to demand change so thank you for watching if you have any other questions feel free to contact me or another check tutor thanks

Channel: Chegg

Views: 49,441

Rating: 4.7306399 out of 5

Keywords: Chegg, Online Tutoring, Homework Help, Conflicty Theory, Sociology, Chegg Tutors, Tutor, Tutors, Tutoring

Id: njVknNGCjhE

Length: 6min 40sec (400 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2016