Sociology is made up of many viewpoints or theories, but they can usually be categorized into three more broad sociological perspectives. The three sociological views are Functionalism, the Conflict theory, and Interactionism. Karl Marx, who among other respectable things, was a German sociological theorist that intensified the Conflict theory.
Unlike the functionalism and the interactionism perspectives, the conflict theory is more of a pessimistic view of society’s problems based on the social change presented in everyday life. A conflict theorists will most likely believe that there are many divisions amongst people, and that these divisions will never be equal. According to the conflict theory, anywhere that a group can be subdivided, there will be some form of inequality, if it’s not blandly …show more content…
obvious at a given time, then the inequality will form after a change in interaction in the group.
When keeping the theory in mind, it is very easy to understand the inequality in social classes based on economic standards.
Relative to the theory, the wealthy will have the control over the poor; the wealthy people will have the higher authority when it comes to governing work. Those that are poor will have less power, and will actually just labor for the wealthy, causing all real production. Although the Chain of Command is very common and tends to work well with business, the conflict theory suggests that the only advantage of the hierarchy of power comes to the privileged wealthy, and that the poor will not grow from their
positions.
One could argue that there is room to move up in the chain of command, however, if every person that once started off at the bottom of the power ladder moved up a step, then there would be a need for more people to start off at the lowest level; the power ladder is a never ending tool that will be set wherever some sort of management is needed. It can be seen in many other places, like the legislation administration.
The Legislators create laws that will supposedly benefit all people, but according to the theory, it will only come to the advantage of themselves. The legislators can be compared to the upper class, and the common people can be compared to the lower class. In the context of the law, crimes can be divided into two distinguished corruptions with a set of different punishments: White and Blue collar crimes. Conflict theorists believe that since the upper class is in the position of creating laws, they will create them in such a way that will only benefit themselves. Although both the legislators and the common people could commit criminalities, the judicial system will have different punishments for them that may be unequal.
Because the common people believe that laws are made to be fair to all people, they could be getting deceived by those who only apply the laws in ways to benefit the upper class. The inequality could come from the privileges that the upper class already has – money. The upper class could afford better or more expensive lawyers that they know personally, or could have some sort of connection that could help them have a reduced sentence. However, the lower class may not have those advantages, and would have to use court appointed lawyers, and may have higher punishments than the upper class personnel.