Conflict theory of Karl Marx

Conflict theory of Karl Marx
Sociology developed primarily as an attempt to understand the massive social and economic changes that had been sweeping in the 17th-19th centuries. These changes were later described as ‘the great transition’ from ‘pre-modern’ to ‘modern’ societies.
Ontological assumptions of Marxist Theory is structuralism, conflict and materialism.
Epistemology of realism.
Marx was influenced by the dialectical method (way of thinking and the image of the world – dynamic rather than static) and historical orientation of Hegel, and Idealism (only mind and psychological constructs exist, the ‘spirit’ of society)
Key issues of Marx’s theory:
A Materialist Social Ontology
Hegelian idealism vs. Marxian materialism
Hegel treated the self-consciousness of the mind as a substantive, really existing, disembodied entity and regarded individual minds as fragments of the one true mind (or Absolute Spirit). “The real is rational”.
Existing evils were attributed to the grip of unsound ideas – especially mystification and illusions produced by religion.
Marx turned Hegel right side up.
The key feature of societies was how they organised material production.
Human emancipation required the material transformation of society rather than a mere change in consciousness.
Historical Materialism is a distinctive method for analysing transforming historical development.
Class struggle vs. succession of modes of production
1. History is the history of class struggle Communist Manifesto
It consists of the class relations typify different historical epochs, these class relations are antagonistic to class struggle. The subordinate classes develop class consciousness and revolutionary movements to challenge the dominant class(es). So, revolutions develop new modes of production and forms of social organisation.
2. History is a succession of modes of production
According to the Manifesto, there is the unfolding logic of a system rather than class struggle.
The Critique of Capitalism
Marx’s theory is about freedom. Capitalism is a step towards freedom. It is also about constraint--about the circumstances and conditions that prevent working people from controlling the conditions of their own lives and work. Division of labour and private property produce alienation. It is bad influence of capitalism.
Alienation – one of the key concepts of Marx’s theory - may be described as a condition in which men are dominated by forces of their own creation, which confront them as alien powers.
1. Alienation of men from products of their labour.
Example, if someone else has control over them
2. Alienated from the process of work.Example, if the role of labour in the transition from ape to man
3. Alienation from others, when human relations become market relations.
The mechanism of exploitation
In capitalist society the exploitation of workers is not obvious as it used to be in feudalism.
It looks like the worker sells a certain amount of her time to the capitalist and that she gets its equivalent in money.
Marx argued that value is produced by labour only.
Marx proposed that the surplus value is produced by the working class as a whole. Capitalists appropriates surplus produced by working class. The profit or surplus-value arises when workers do more labour than is necessary to pay the cost of hiring their labour-power.
Ideology and ‘false consciousness’
Conflict ontology assumes that societies are based on permanent conflicts (zero-sum model).
Those who are most powerful in society try to socialise the least powerful into accepting the status quo. So the consensus in Marx’s opinion is manufactured by means of ideology to maintain and protect the advantages of the powerful e.g. by preserving ‘false consciousness’.
Ideology is an organised collection of ideas.
Ideology is located in superstructure. The ruling class controls the superstructure of society, including its ideology which is determined according to what is in the ruling class's best interests. Therefore the ideology of a society is of enormous importance since it confus