Conflict Functionalism
Conflict functionalism is a way of looking at society. It is a perspective. It is the opposite of structural functionalism. Where structural functionalism stresses the existence of groups cooperating with each other and working together, conflict functionalism stresses how groups exist and compete with each other. There are many different types of critical functionalism but one of the main views was developed around the idea Marxism.
Marxism was idea developed by a man named Karl Marx during the Russian Revolution. Marx regarded people as both the product and producers of society. They make society what it is through their own actions. Therefore he believed that history was product of human self-creation. Yet humans are also the product of society. Society shapes us into what we are and how we behave. Karl Marx believed that harmony could never last forever and that conflict would occur. He also recognised that it was economic factors that largely shaped society. He also said that history of human society is a process of change tension and conflict. Social change is a not a smooth orderly progression that gradually unfolds reaching harmony at the other end. Society includes many contradictions that form the tension and provide the means for open conflict and radical change. It starts with the idea that in order for humans to survive they must trade, trading their produce gives and economy. This economy is the basis for conflict. The economy also provides and infrastructure for society, the infrastructure of society goes on to produce the superstructure of society. The economy controls many other institutions within the superstructure including education, politics and the legal institution. This means that changes in the infrastructure produce change in the superstructure.
