DAINIELLE SHAYNE V.

TABORDAN
12 - CHARITY

Karl Heinrich Marx

THE FATHER OF
SOCIOLOGY
PHILOSOPHY: CONFLICT THEORY

“Socialism is when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. When a person gets hungry, that’s socialism too.
Some might say that it’s when the workers own the means of production but this is all really an elaborate plot
for us wealthy folks to keep bread for ourselves.”

- Karl Marx

Conflict theory emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order. This perspective is
derived from the works of Karl Marx, who saw society as fragmented into groups that compete for social and
economic resources. Social order is maintained by domination, with power in the hands of those with the greatest
political, economic, and social resources. When consensus exists, it is attributable to people being united around
common interests, often in opposition to other groups.

According to conflict theory, inequality exists because those in control of a disproportionate share of society’s
resources actively defend their advantages. The masses are not bound to society by their shared values, but by
coercion at the hands of those in power. This perspective emphasizes social control, not consensus and
conformity. Groups and individuals advance their own interests, struggling over control of societal resources.
Those with the most resources exercise power over others with inequality and power struggles resulting. There is
great attention paid to class, race, and gender in this perspective because they are seen as the grounds of the most
pertinent and enduring struggles in society.

Whereas most other sociological theories focus on the positive aspects of society, conflict perspective focuses on
the negative, conflicted, and ever-changing nature of society. Unlike functionalists who defend the status quo,
avoid social change, and believe people cooperate to effect social order, conflict theorists challenge the status
quo, encourage social change (even when this means social revolution), and believe rich and powerful people
force social order on the poor and the weak. Conflict theorists, for example, may interpret an “elite” board of
regents raising tuition to pay for esoteric new programs that raise the prestige of a local college as self-serving
rather than as beneficial for students.

To generalize, society is broken up into two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. These two groups
are always at odds, whenever one group rose to power a different group then lost power. It became this back and
forth, all fighting over scare resources, may it be tangible or not .Based on my understanding to this theory, the
dominant group is planting their own seed of destruction, they are most likely to start a revolution. For the reason
that, when the oppressed group realizes the discrimination they are receiving or experiencing, they will start
complaining and eventually revolt and try to change the status quo that will result to a conflict. .As the time passes
by, time will come that the oppressed will defeat the oppressors and they will become the new controlling group
.According to Karl Marx, this scenario is a cycle that will repeat over and over again. Our society will never hit
a point of equilibrium.
BIOGRAPHY OF KARL HEINRICH MARX

Marx was born in Trier, Prussia (present-day Germany) on May 5, 1818, to Heinrich Marx and Henrietta
Pressberg. Marx's parents were Jewish, and he came from a long line of rabbis on both sides of his family.
However, his father converted to Lutheranism to evade antisemitism prior to Marx's birth. Marx was educated at
home by his father until high school, and in 1835 at the age of 17, enrolled at Bonn University in Germany, where
he studied law at his father's request. Marx, however, was much more interested in philosophy and literature.
Following that first year at the university, Marx became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, an educated baroness.
They would later marry in 1843. In 1836, Marx enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he soon felt at home
when he joined a circle of brilliant and extreme thinkers who were challenging existing institutions and ideas,
including religion, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Marx graduated with his doctoral degree in 1841.After school,
Marx turned to writing and journalism to support himself. In 1842 he became the editor of the liberal Cologne
newspaper "Rheinische Zeitung," but the Berlin government banned it from publication the following year. Marx
left Germany—never to return—and spent two years in Paris, where he first met his collaborator, Friedrich
Engels. However, chased out of France by those in power who opposed his ideas, Marx moved to Brussels, in
1845, where he founded the German Workers’ Party and was active in the Communist League. There, Marx
networked with other leftist intellectuals and activists and—together with Engels—wrote his most famous work,
"The Communist Manifesto." Published in 1848, it contained the famous line: "Workers of the world unite. You
have nothing to lose but your chains." After being exiled from Belgium, Marx finally settled in London where he
lived as a stateless exile for the rest of his life. Marx worked in journalism and wrote for both German and English
language publications. From 1852 to 1862, he was a correspondent for the "New York Daily Tribune," writing a
total of 355 articles. He also continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how
he believed it could be improved, as well as actively campaigning for socialism. He spent the rest of his life
working on a three-volume tome, "Das Kapital," which saw its first volume published in 1867. In this work, Marx
aimed to explain the economic impact of capitalist society, where a small group, which he called the bourgeoisie,
owned the means of production and used their power to exploit the proletariat, the working class that actually
produced the goods that enriched the capitalist tsars. Engels edited and published the second and third volumes
of "Das Kapital" shortly after Marx's death. While Marx remained a relatively unknown figure in his own lifetime,
his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on socialist movements shortly after his
death. He succumbed to cancer on March 14, 1883 in London. Marx’s theories about society, economics, and
politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, argue that all society progresses through the dialectic of class
struggle. He was critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, which he called the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their
own benefit, and predicted that it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-
destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. He believed that socialism would eventually be replaced
by a stateless, classless society called communism.
REFLECTION

“Socialism is when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. When a person gets hungry, that’s socialism
too. Some might say that it’s when the workers own the means of production but this is all an elaborate plot for
us wealthy folks to keep bread for ourselves,” a phrase written in the book of Karl Marx about Conflict Theory.
This theory is very relevant to our reality. It exists in every aspect of society. Accept it or not, Inequality and
discrimination are still happening today. Only those people who are in the upper class or middle class can have
all the privileges in this world while those unfortunates need to work hard to get it. Although, majority of the
population belongs to oppressed and few are the oppressors yet they still have the power. Even though we are
living in a country with democracy, we are still fighting for equality and freedom. The only difference is that we
are a prisoner to our own country by the capitalist and not by the foreigners.

Conflict theory simply means that more powerful groups use their power to exploit groups with less power
and the money is the mechanism which creates social disorder. That will make the aggrieved people take action
to fight for justice. For example, Rice is a staple food in the Philippines. That’s why there are many farmers, who
plant rice for the living. Even though farmers are very important, their job is one of the lowest-paid jobs in our
country. The farm owners get the big percent of the income while the laborers or farmers who worked hard in
able to have harvest get the small amount of it. Many people belittle their job which is one type of discrimination.
As a result, people started to protest for the rights of the farmers to the government. For that reason, Marx
suggested that the poor would revolt until conditions became acceptable, and the circle would repeat. To elaborate,
take the case of our system in the Government or politics in general. When you think about the system of Politics
in the Philippines, one of the things that will pop into your mind is Political Dynasty. As you observe to the people
who sit in the Government, most of them came from one bloodline. For instance, the Aquino family who ruled
the Philippines over many years. First, Benigno Aquino Sr. became our president back then. Later on, his wife
Corazon Aquino followed her husband’s footstep. While in 2010, the couple’s son named Benigno Aquino III
became the president of the Philippines. Only those who are known and powerful have the chance to lead our
country. While those who came from nothing has a smaller chance to win. Someone can try to exclude them but
there will always be other politicians who will keep the wealth to their clan. That’s why some Filipinos look at
our Government as the real opponent of our country’s betterment. Unfortunately, as the wealth gap becomes too
wide, social unrest will ensue. Lastly and in connection with this, another example of the application of Karl
Marx’s theory in Philippine context is the EDSA revolution. Where the people empowered themselves to
overthrow the dictator, who is abusive to its power, and grabbed the freedom they deserve, leading to progress of
the country. Since then the Philippines was a democratic country and all the people have equality and rights
despite the different status in life. But then the conflict between the classes cannot be denied. It can be seen in the
face of the country. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Despite the democracy, social stratification is still
present in our society. People should have the voice in this kind of problems but it seems that most are drowned
out by bigger names. If the government doesn’t help reduce the degree of inequality, more conflict will run out
of control and protests, movement, or even civil wars will break out like what we are experiencing and witnessing
today.

Unfortunately, what this theory’s saying is true and unavoidable. In conclusion, this theory only invites
us to look to the reality of our society despite the differences and the transformation it has undergone; that there
still lingers the conflict between the stratification of classes. Indeed, it affects the lives of everyone by trying to
live up in the social standings of our society. Moreover, our actions is based according on our social standings.
This is a never ending competition and all of us are the players in it. Sadly, we have to deal with this crisis every
day. This is the reason why some of us doesn’t believe in the presence of humanity because of people’s greediness
to power and money that will lead to cruelty and blindness. Conversely, despite this dilemma we should open our
eyes and focus on things that really matters like compassion, equality, peace and justice. At the end of the day,
we are all humans and we all deserve to be treated equally no matter what is our status in life.