Karl Marx And Social Conflict Theory In The United States

Submitted By alpx5
Words: 352
Pages: 2

Karl Marx out of the entire sociologist has had the greatest influences on not only the United States, but on world having one-fifth of humanity living in a society that is based off of Marxist principal (Gold, 2009). With this being said it is easy to tell that Marxist principal must be correct in some way or another. Karl Marx bases his theory off of the social conflict approach, which he help developed. This approach sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change (Gold, 2009). The purposes of the conflict, or competition is to force people to get better then other, so there is a constant increase in production. This forces people to always preform to the best of the abilities, and help the company grow (Penguin, 1963). This can be easily seen in the United States today, by looking at the growing important of getting a college education in order to get a solid career. There are also downfalls to the conflict approach one of things people see, as a downfall is that there is separation of power between social classes. The social classes cause class conflict, which is where the lower class gets frustrated with the higher class due to the unequal separation of wealth and power (Gold, 2009). The thing is the lower class actually has the power since they work all the jobs the upper class rely on to get paid, if the lower class come to a class consciousness to strike (Marx, 1848). The upper class will have to give in or not be paid as well; this is