CONFLICT

PERSPECTIVE
Useful Sources for Conflict Theory

 https
://sociologydictionary.org/conflict-the
ory
/

 https://
www.investopedia.com/terms/c/conflic
t-theory.asp
Conflicts in Human History

French Revolution (1789-1799): Social/political

upheaval; overthrew the monarchy; established a
republic
Conflict Perspective

 Almost all countries are currently based  Ref.

on capitalism. What do you think about
this society?
 Capitalism (also called free market economy)
is an economic system based on the private
ownership of the means of production and
their operation for profit.
 Central characteristics of capitalism:
 Wage labor
 Competitive markets
 Capital accumulation
 Price system
 Private property
 Property rights recognition
 Voluntary exchange

 https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-
inequality/
 Musical Chairs
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L0MGrqz4PQ
Conflict Perspective
Who makes
the rule?
Another Option?

 Musical Chairs
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUymP0ROjjU
Conflict Perspective
Conflict Perspective
 Conflict Theorists are Primarily
Interested in Two Phenomena:
 Power
 Change
 More specifically, how people use power
to (1) resist or (2) create change
 17th and 18th century conflict theory:
 Primarily reflected political concerns and
formulations
 Were mainly used in classical economics.
 Central Propositions of Conflict Theory (by
Denisoff & Wahrman, 1989, p.22)
 Interests are basic elements of social life
 Social life involves coercion
 Social life involves groups with different interests
 Social life generates opposition, exclusion, and
hostility
 Social life generates conflict
 Social differences involve power
 Social systems are not united or harmonious
 Social systems tend to change
 Conflict generates social change
 Stability is viewed as a temporary and unusual state
 The norm:
 Conflict rather than consensus
 Coercion rather than cooperation
Conflict Perspective

 The root of contemporary conflict theory are

usually traced to the works of Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels
 Use of dialectic method to analyze social relations in
the material world.
 The social world influence and perhaps oppresses them
(people), they may also influence it” (Payne, 1991)
 Marx saw contemporary society as polarization
between two dominant classes:
 Workers (i.e., Proletariat class)
 Capitalists (i.e., Bourgeois class)
 “ Accumulation of wealth at one pole is therefore, at
the same time the accumulation of misery, agony of
toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation,
at the opposite pole” ( Marx & Engels, 1955, p.93)
 Class struggle
 Continual conflict is caused by inequality that results
from social class differences.
Conflict Perspective

 What is False Consciousness?

 What is Class consciousness?
 Conflict Perspective to Community (pp. 419-420)
 How to apply conflict perspective to
community?
 Social and economic inequalities by power
elites who legitimize existing social
hierarchies
 Historical collective struggles that have led
to greater empowerment for specific
groups
 Power differentials within a given
community
 Power struggles between communities
 “People routinely feel the need to
celebrate, protect, defend, and replicate
their own communities
VS
 “People routinely disregard, avoid, and
upon occasion, destroy those of others”
 Examples:
 Education gaps by influencing educational policies and
funding
 Housing segregation by shaping housing policies that
lead to residential segregation
 Employment practices using nepotism, discriminatory
hiring, limiting economic opportunities for marginalized
groups
 Local medial outlets to shape public perception and
discourse
 Healthcare access by influencing over healthcare
facilities and policies, resulting in unequal access to
quality healthcare services and receiving subpar care
 Criminal justice system by influencing law enforcement
and the criminal justice system, resulting in biased
policing and harsher sentencing for certain groups
 Control major charitable organizations which can be
used to legitimize existing hierarchies by addressing
symptoms of inequality rather than root causes.
Conflict Perspective to Community (pp. 419-420)

 Community Social Workers:

 Should focus on unequal power distribution
 Analyze the structure of community power and influence
 Who controls which types of resources and how power brokers are related to one another
 Use a range of confrontational tactics to challenge privilege and oppression
 Should stimulate community participants to challenge community narratives that legitimize the
status quo
 Should analyze the impact of the macro political and economic contexts on local community
members’ social networks
 Know that failure to recognize the power politics operating in communities does damage to the
least powerful members
 Work for both inclusion and equality of opportunities in a framework of coexistence when the
community is diverse and multicultural
 Assist communities that show exclusionary and punitive attitudes toward immigrants/refugees
 Use “restorative justice programs” or “Intercultural Mediation Programme” to heal friction and conflict
within neighborhoods, which allows storytelling and dialogue about social fractures and allow
communities to move toward a more just future
Conflict Perspective to Community (pp. 419-420)

 A Program Model (Intercultural Mediation Programme) in Barcelona, Spain

 3 goals
 Facilitate the resolution of intercultural community conflicts that occur in public spaces
 Facilitate the resolution of intercultural conflict situations among neighbors living in the same
buildings
 Provide information and advice to service professionals struggling with intercultural conflicts
 This program is carried out by community mediator teams who use both linguistic and
sociocultural interpreters
Conflict Perspective

 Max Weber (1904-1905/1958)

 Emphasis the confluence of social, economic,
and political structures that create inequality
(e.g., prestige, power)
 Multidimensional perspective on social class
Conflict Perspective

 Harbermas (1984, 1981/1987) and other

critical theorists:
 As capitalism underwent change, people were
more likely to be controlled by ‘culture’ than
by their work position
 Controlled by Mass Media
 Calling attention to the role of the advertising
industry in exploiting consumers (work hard in
order to consume)
 The time we spend on social media
 Leaving little time for reflective or
revolutionary thinking
Conflict Perspective

 A New Form of Capitalism:

 ‘Prosumer Capitalism’
 Established by Alvin Toffler in 1980 and reworked by George Ritzer
 Greater possibilities for individuals (consumers) to perform tasks previously carried out for them by others
(producers)
 Exploitation involved in the production of goods (Karl Marx) + Exploitation involved in consumer capitalism
(critical theorist)
 i.e., the lines between production and consumption are blurred
 People are engaging in economic activities in which we are simultaneously ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’
 E.g., self-pump, self-checkout, social media users who provide the content (used to gather more users)
and data that can be sold for profit)
 Turns us to free workers while eliminating or downgrading the skill set and compensation of some
paid work positions:
 Use the labor of prosumers to create great wealth for a relatively small group of economic elites in a
process
Conflict Perspective

 International Inequality (Immanuel

Wallerstein)
 Economic differences between countries
 The capitalist world system is divided into 3
geographic areas with greatly different levels of
power
 A Core Nations:
 Dominate the capitalist worldwide economy
and exploits the natural resources and labor in
other nations
 The Periphery Nations:
 Provide cheap raw materials and labor that are
exploited to the advantage of the core
 The Semiperiphery nations:
 Are newly industrializing countries
 Benefit from the periphery but are exploited by
the core
 ‘Colonialism’ and historical experiences are widely
perceived as creating an unfair global economy that
keeps poor countries poor and rich countries rich.
 (Question) How can it be related to social work?
Conflict Perspective

 Postcolonial Theory
 Analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse
of (usually European) imperial power based on a critical
theory
 (Critical theory is a theory that focuses on reflective
assessment and critique of society and culture to reveal
and challenge power structures)
 Focus on the ongoing impact of 18th and 19th-century
colonialism on the social, cultural, political, and
economic development of both the colonizing nations
and the colonies
 Considers how colonizers racialized people that were
colonizing
 Examines the ways that a colonial mentality continues to
influence how we think and talk about race and ethnicity
 Imposing such image that sustains Western privilege and
power
 Current world is:
 A neocolonial world where a philosophy of neoliberalism
puts great faith in the rationality of a free market and
opposes any form of collectivism, state planning, or safety
net for those who are economically disadvantaged
 Ensuring that those who held power during the colonial era
were well situated to continue to hold power
Conflict Perspective

 Neoliberalism
 Ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of
free market competition
 Most commonly associated with laissez-faire economics
 What is Laissez-faire economics?
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u771-5fVCc
 Characterized in terms of its belief in:
 Sustained economic growth as the means to achieve human
progress;
 Its confidence in ‘free markets’ as the most-efficient
allocation of resources,
 Its emphasis on minimal state intervention in
economic and social affairs  Its reemergence in academic literature was in the mid-1980s.
 Its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital  Commonly associated with the economic policies introduced
 Seeks to transfer the control of economic factors from the by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald
public sector (e.g., public health, education) to the private Reagan in the United States.
sector
 Smith, N. (2019, June 28). Neoliberalism: Political and social
 Even policies are designed to: science. In Britanica. Retrieved October 12, 2020 from
 Enhance the workings of free market capitalism https://www.britannica.com/topic/neoliberalism
 Kenton, W. (2020, July 24). Neoliberalism. In Investopedia.
 Attempt to place limits on government spending, Retrieved from
government regulation, and public ownership. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp
Conflict Perspective

 Criticism of Neoliberalism
 Its tendency to endanger democracy,
workers’ rights, and sovereign nations’ right to
self-determination.
 Advocating for a free market approach in
areas such as health and education is
misguided because these services are public
services.
 Public services are not subject to the same
profit motivation as other industries.
 More importantly, adopting a free market
approach in the areas of health and education
can lead to an increase in inequality and the
underfunding of resources (health and
education) that are necessary for the long-
term health and viability of an economy.

Kenton, W. (2020, July 24). Neoliberalism. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp

 Conflict Perspective
 Critical Theory
 Attempts to find the underlying assumptions in social life that keep people from fully
and truly understanding how the world works.
 Aims to critique and change society as a whole (i.e., explain and transform all the
circumstances that enslave human beings)
 Assumption:
 Social problems are created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by
individual and psychological factors
 Drawing particularly on the thought of ‘Karl Marx’ and ‘Sigmund Freud’
 Look at the reactions and adaptations of “individual members” of non-dominant groups
 Oppression of non-dominant groups leads to their ‘alienation’ or a sense of indifference or
hostility
 Calls attend to:
 How microaggressions, brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages and insults
to people in non-dominant groups
 Believing that science has been used as “an instrument of oppression” (Britannica,
2019)
 They caution against a blind faith in scientific progress, arguing that scientific knowledge must
not be pursued as an end in itself without reference to “the goal of human emancipation”
 A primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to “help overcome the social structures
through which people are dominated and oppressed.”
Britannica. (2019). Critical theory. In Britannica. Retrieved October 12, 2020 from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory
Conflict Perspective

 Feminist theories  Intersectionality theories

 Focus on male domination of the major social
institutions
 Present a vision of a just world based on
gender equity
 Feminist and critical race theorists have
developed
 Recognizes vectors of oppression and
privilege (e.g., gender, class, race, global
location, sexual orientation, age, etc.)
Conflict Perspective
 Pluralistic theory of social conflict
 Lewis Coser (1956) proposed before the
development of intersectionality theory
 Recognizes that:
 More than one social conflict is going on at all
times
 Individual hold-cross-cutting and overlapping
memberships in status groups
 Empowerment theories
 Social work has drawn heavily on the conflict
perspective to understand dynamics of
privilege (i.e., unearned advantage),
discrimination, oppression
 Social work have used the conflict
perspective as a base to develop practice-
oriented ‘empowerment theories’
 Empowerment theories:
 Focus on processes that individuals and
collectivities can use to recognize patterns of
inequality and injustice
 Take action to increase their own power