Define Conflict Theory
Conflict, or critical theory, is a complex philosophical attack on modern political life. Usually, this body of thought is known as "critical" theory in philosophy, and "conflict" theory in the social sciences. The terms are identical. The chief method of critical writers begins with the idea that social life is based on the imposition of a legal and moral code on the poor by the wealthy. The inequality of social groups is the main starting point for this tradition.
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Features
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The basic feature of critical or conflict theory is the analysis of inequality. Conflict here means that those who have been able to amass a tremendous amount of social power will naturally seek to create a society in their own image. In general, the conflict theorist wants to see who will benefit from a particular law or practice.
Significance
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The basic significance of conflict theory has been to show that social life is relative, and social institutions are creations of the victorious classes in the endless struggle for dominance in the social world. Therefore, social analysis begins with inequality, and has the implication that eventually, once the workers in a given society take power for themselves, all forms of social and economic conflict will cease.
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Function
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The purpose of conflict theory is to provide a basis to criticize institutions of modern power relations. It reduces all politics to these relations and nothing else. The police exist to protect the rich against the poor. Prisons exist to keep the poor away from rich neighborhoods. Morality is to keep the poor docile. Everything is relative to the existence of social power and inequality.
Considerations
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One of the main points of focus for conflict theory is legitimacy. A law is legitimate so long as the whole of people help make it, or at least consent to it. In modern societies, social and economic inequality is such that laws and social practices are not legitimate, since the bulk of the population was not consulted in the creation of laws and practices, nor do they have any real means of consenting to it. Therefore, there is no moral reason to obey such laws, and social rebellion of the dispossessed is legitimate. To some extent, rebellion and violence are legitimized by conflict theory.
Benefits
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The main benefit of conflict theory is that it shows social life as having been created by human beings. There is no "natural law" here. Society exists because those with power have made it that way. If society was made, then it can be unmade, and a new society put in its place. There is noting immutable about modern social life. It is an artificial creation.
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