Conflict Theory

Figure 1. These people are protesting a decision made by Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee, to lay off custodians and outsource the jobs to a private firm to avoid paying employee benefits. Private job agencies often pay lower hourly wages and do not offer retirement benefits or health insurance. Is the decision fair? (Photo courtesy of Brian Stansberry/Wikimedia Commons)

Conflict theory focuses on the creation and reproduction of inequality. Conflict theorists are deeply critical of social stratification, asserting that it benefits only some people, not all of society. For instance, to a conflict theorist, it seems wrong that a basketball player is paid millions for an annual contract while a public school teacher earns $35,000 a year. Stratification, conflict theorists believe, perpetuates inequality. Conflict theorists try to bring awareness to inequalities, such as how a rich society can have so many poor members.

Many conflict theorists draw on the work of Karl Marx. During the nineteenth-century era of industrialization, Marx believed social stratification resulted from workers’ relationship to the means of production. People were divided by a single line: they either owned factories or worked in them. In Marx’s time, bourgeois capitalists owned high-producing businesses, factories, and land, as they still do today. Proletarians were the workers who performed the manual labor to produce goods. Upper-class capitalists raked in profits and got rich, while working-class proletarians earned meager wages and struggled to survive. With such opposing interests, the two groups were divided by differences of wealth and power. Marx theorized that workers experienced deep alienation, isolation and misery resulting from their sense of powerlessness and inferior status (Marx 1848). Marx argued that the proletarians were oppressed by the bourgeois.

Today, while working conditions have improved, conflict theorists believe that the strained working relationship between employers and employees still exists. Capitalists own the means of production, and a system is in place to make business owners rich and keep workers poor. According to conflict theorists, the resulting stratification creates class conflict. If he were alive in today’s economy–one still recovering from a prolonged recession–Marx would likely argue that the recession resulted from the greed of capitalists, who profited at the expense of working people.

When examining global stratification, a conflict theorist would likely address the systematic inequality created when core nations exploit the resources of peripheral nations. For example, how many U.S. companies take advantage of overseas workers who lack the constitutional protections and guaranteed minimum wages that exist in the United States? And how many establish overseas operations in countries with weak or nonexistent environmental protections? Doing so allows them to maximize profits, but at what cost?

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a theory that uses everyday interactions of individuals to explain society as a whole. Symbolic interactionism examines stratification from a micro-level perspective. This analysis strives to explain how people’s social standing affects their everyday interactions.

In most communities, people interact primarily with others who share the same social standing. It is precisely because of social stratification that people tend to live, work, and associate with others like themselves, people who share their income level, educational background, or racial background, and even tastes in food, music, and clothing. The built-in system of social stratification groups people together. This is one of the reasons why it was rare for a royal prince like England’s Prince William to marry a commoner.

Symbolic interactionists also note that people’s appearance reflects their perceived social standing. Housing, clothing, and transportation indicate social status, as do hairstyles, taste in accessories, and other symbolic elements of personal style.

Figure 2. (a) A group of construction workers on the job site, and (b) a group of businessmen. What categories of stratification do these construction workers share? How do construction workers differ from executives or custodians? Who is more skilled? Who has greater prestige in society? (Photo (a) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Chun Kit/flickr)

To symbolically communicate social standing, people often engage in conspicuous consumption, which is the purchase, use, and display of certain products to make a social statement about status. Carrying pricey but eco-friendly water bottles could indicate a person’s social standing. Some people buy expensive, trendy sneakers even though they will never wear them to jog or play sports. A $17,000 car provides transportation as effectively as a $100,000 vehicle, but the luxury model makes a social statement that the less expensive car does not. All these symbols of stratification are worthy of examination by an interactionist.

When examining global stratification, a symbolic interactionist would study the day-to-day impact of global inequality, the meanings individuals attach to global stratification, and the subjective nature of poverty. Someone applying this view to global inequality would probably focus on understanding the difference between what someone living in a core nation defines as poverty (relative poverty, defined as being unable to live the lifestyle of the average person in your country) and what someone living in a peripheral nation defines as poverty (extreme poverty, defined as being barely able, or unable, to afford basic necessities such as food).