System, Group, and Power: Chapter One, An Order of Disorder 1.2

1.2 Conflict Theory
The functionalist model is not the only framework which regards society as a system; there is another kind of analysis which understands the total character of societies without conceding to functionalist assumptions. The more important difference lays in the wide-ranging understanding it has regarding social unity, attributed partly to a commonality of values and partly to the imposition of class interests; while in some cases normative action depends on a majoritarian consensus, in others, its regulations depend on coercion exercised through different mechanisms of power. Consequently, this framework does not consider the social order as a functional order, but one of conflict, rising not so much from collective needs, but from the interests of a faction or social class which imposes itself on the rest.

Human history demonstrates that most known societies have expressed some form of hierarchy, organizing the population according to polarized categories or onto social strata: citizens and slaves, masters and servants. Often, this discriminatory situation has been accepted without question—at least, as far as we know. Rather, social divisions are considered part of the natural order, a product of unchanging destiny, or the consequence of the inscrutable design of a deity. Yet, in other cases, this discriminatory order has fostered rebellion and riot from oppressed factions. For example, the great slave rebellion against the Roman yoke between 73 and 71BCE under the leadership of the gladiator Spartacus is well known, an uprising which ended in the rebels' massacre—an almost constant pattern in history.

In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels put forth an interpretation of the social world in a document which remains a critical point of reference up to our time: the Manifesto of the Communist Party. According to Marx and Engels (1848/1969, p. 34-35):

[T]he history of all societies up to our times is the history of class struggle. Free men and slaves, patricians and plebeians, lords and serfs, guild masters and journeymen, in a word, oppressors and oppressed, confront each other, engaged in constant conflict, sometimes hidden and in other times frank and open; this struggle has always ended with the revolutionary transformation of all society or the downfall of both classes in conflict.

The fundamental idea of conflict theories regarding society lays in this: that the social order, the unity of the system, is neither the product of destiny, whether divine or natural, nor the popular consensus of each society’s members. It is instead the result of inter-group conflict—a conflict between social factions. There is a permanent struggle between social classes, whatever those classes in each particular society may be, and the shape of the system’s unity reflects the interests of the dominant class, that is to say, the class or social classes exerting their power at a given moment in the confrontation. Therefore, understanding a particular social system entails analyzing what the opposing classes are in given moment and discovering the interests which are represented in the system's dominant normative structures, whether one recognizes them as they are or unmasks them from a universalized form.

Three tasks are essential for performing an analysis of a social system from the conflict theory perspective: (1) Determining the principal social relations in a society; (2) examining the system’s structuration, above all the relation between socio-economic and politico-ideological structures; and (3) understanding the processes of change as they occur in that society.

1.2.1 Social Relations

The starting point for the analyzing a social system is to determine the most basic social relations within a society. The most fundamental relations are the “structural” relations, which the mode or modes of production predominant in a society articulate and which the most significant interactions between groups and individuals shape (See Martín-Baró, 1983b, Chapter 3). These basic relations constitute the central framework of a social system to such a degree, that Anthony Giddens has been able to define a social system as “relations reproduced between actors or collectivities, organized as regular social practices” (Giddens, 1979, pp. 66). For Giddens, structures only exist as properties of social systems, consisting of a certain organization of rules and resources.

The character of the most important social relations gives rise to social classes, understood as those groups of people who occupy the same position in the structure of production and who thus share the same objective social interests, whether they are conscious of them or not. Social classes are not static or fixed in reality; rather, they are groups whose boundaries are shaped at every moment of interaction between every group involved in the economic and political process, that is to say, whose definition depends on the particular shape the class struggle acquires at a certain moment in history. For this reason, reality rarely offers a clear confrontation between two classes, such as the bourgeoisie and proletariat, even though such a conflict often occurs at critical moments, such as in civil wars. In day-to-day affairs, the class struggle may generate complex groups, intermediate social factions whose boundaries are not always so easily describable as Marx himself wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx, 1852/1969; see Poulantzas, 1973).

The activity of individuals or particular groups, as subjects of this system of social relations, is not understood by their individual characteristics, but by their position in the class structure. According to Erick Olin Wright (1979, 1980), three positions can be distinguished within a class structure: the basic, the contradictory within a given mode of production, and the contradictory between different modes of production. The basic situation of class within a given mode of production establishes a complete polarization between the social relations of production; for example, between owners and workers in the capitalist system. But, within the same mode of production, there are also contradictory positions, where a person simultaneously occupies two places: for example, a person who works for some but is a capitalist or ruler (perhaps, exploiter) above others. This is the case of executives in many large capitalist enterprises. Finally, there are contradictory places between modes of production, since societies generally have relations of production corresponding to non-dominant modes (for example, non-capitalist modes), and people find themselves between those different modes of production (See Figure 2).

The diversity of positions in the class structure goes on to generate, at each particular moment, social stratification. However, stratification is not only dependent on the relations of production in that they differentiate between who appropriates the product of the labor process for themselves and who are dispossessed of it (relations of appropriation); stratification is also a consequence of the occasional gap between those who exercise control and those who must submit themselves to others’ orders through that productive process (relations of control). Both kinds of relations, appropriation and control, are intrinsically linked, but their distinction can elucidate the unique social position of those who might not have proprietary control over the means of production but still exercise control in labor relations. The social stratification resulting from these social relations cannot be classified as functional in the sense of corresponding to personal or systemic needs as a whole; its apparent functionality may only be a reflection of the demands of those who form a part of the dominant class or classes, demands which impose themselves in practice and only then justify themselves before other social groups through law.

1.2.2 Social Structuration

The second task in analyzing systems through the lens of conflict is to examine the structuration of the system and to unmask the biased character of its identity. The principles and values, the ideals and norms which regulate the social whole are not the expression of collective agreement or a "social contract." They reflect the control exercised by a class in basic social relations. Values and culture, the law and order of the society, constitute a “superstructure,” an extension of the social whole which supports itself atop the infrastructural “base” of productive relations, on which it depends. Far from being the heart of a social system, the ideological superstructure is better described as its skin. As any good fruit vendors knows, the skin of a fruit determines its sale date; but any good buyer knows that the skin is often deceptive, and in any case, is not the important part of the fruit.

The relation between the economic structure and the cultural superstructure was summarized by Marx in a famous paragraph in the prologue of his Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy: 

In the social production of life, men enter into determined relations which are both necessary and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The whole of these relations of production shape the economic structure of society, the real base from which the legal and political superstructure arises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the development of social, political, and spiritual life in general (Marx, 1859/1960, p. 187).

Opposing what Parsons argues, conflict theory maintains that the boundaries of social values do not play a leading role, but are wholly subordinate to the orientation of the system and to the expression of individuals’ and groups’ behavior. Indeed, values compose the ideology of a system, and like a fruit's skin, make it attractive, reasonable; they “sell” it. Ideology is the selling point of a social system and, consequently, of dominant interests at a given moment.

According to conflict models of society, there are three principal ways through which the ideological superstructure carries out its functions of justifying the ruling order and helping to impose the interests of the dominant classes on the social whole: (a) through the universalization of the particular interests of the class in power; (b) through the denial of social contradictions; and (c) through the naturalization of the present (See Giddens, 1979, p. 193-197).

Perhaps the most important way ideology contributes to the maintenance of the social system is by presenting the interests of the dominant class as if they were the interests of the entire population. One might say, for example, that the preservation and defense of private property responds to the needs of all social sectors, that tax exemptions on capital returns are a benefit to the community, that the free importation of luxury products contributes to economic vitality, or even that at-will hiring and laying off benefits workers (See Text Four). In all these cases, dominant interests make themselves pass as universal values, which all people are compelled to accept as desirable ideals and normative directives.

A second way ideology justifies and maintains the ruling social system is by negating or distorting the contradictions of the established order. There are many ways this process happens. One of the most important ways consists of separating economic ends from political ends, as if they were independent of each other. It is typically an ideological act to present the administration of a business, an institution, or even a governmental ministry as a technical, apolitical duty. In this way, the measures which are beneficial to the dominant social group—such as ripping apart a goal of the Agrarian Reform—are presented as unbiased decisions arrived at through expert opinion. The most powerful industries of El Salvador, the associated representatives of big capital, often produce this kind of ideological distortion in their public pronouncements. Their demands regarding coffee production, the purchase of foreign currency, or regulations on salaries are justified with “purely technical” arguments, even though they are, in fact, demands made by a particular class with grave political consequences for the whole population.

Generally speaking, when one claims that politics matters are on a plane different from and even unrelated to that of economic processes, or that they only concern games played by political parties in managing the state, most social conflicts become estranged from their historical roots, especially those regarding labor, dashing any hopes for solving them beyond the political order. At the same time, this distinction preserves systems of established authority, obscuring the connection between the demands of labor and the rejection of class domination.

A familiar tactic used to deny or obscure social contradictions is to psychologize issues, attributing the nature of the politico-economic system itself to purely personal characteristics; thus, it makes it seem like the existing order is not the ultimate root of problems regarding exploitation or injustice, but the corruption of officials in power, the short-sightedness of particular businessmen, or the grievances of workers themselves. This kind of ideological distortion often operates through what we have called “mechanisms of selective inattention,” which are more or less institutionalized (See Martín-Baró, 1972, p. 121-140).

The third fundamental way ideology contributes to the system's survival is by naturalizing the present reality, the current state of affairs. This technique focuses on making something appear “natural," as something which the nature of things demands, or even as a fact of existence, raising no questions about the inherent qualities of the present social order which manifest as class domination itself. This naturalization of what really is the product of history is a true reification, or objectification, of social realities. Characteristic examples of this ideological naturalization in our countries lay in the presentation of private property as a natural and inalienable human right, the assumption that “there shall always be rich and poor” (which is even justified with reference to the divine teachings of Christ), and the thought that the social role of women is naturally predetermined by their reproductive function. Each of these cases, beneficial for those who actually have power, is presented as a consequence of human nature itself and therefore is taken away from the ever questionable sphere of historical development.

1.2.3 Processes of Change

In opposition to the functionalist notion (especially in its Parsonsian form) that the social system is a form of harmonious equilibrium achieved through the axiological consensus of its members, conflict theory proposes that all forms of social equilibrium are, as a matter of principle, provisional and unstable. Thus, while functionalism cannot explain change as anything more than internal differentiation within the system, rarely producing maladjusted members, conflict theory sees change as the result, or even the demand, of the system's makeup, which refuses its negation. For functionalism, change can only really be an evolutionary development of the system itself, whereas for conflict theory, change is revolution, which modifies the nature of the system at its base, reshaping its relations of production and thus dethroning the class socially in power.

At a certain phase in development, the material productive forces of society enter into contradiction with the existing relations of production, or in stricter terms, with the relations of property through which they have operated up to that point. These relations are transformed from being the forms of development of productive forces into their chains. And this thus begins an epoch of social revolution. As the economic base changes, the entire, immense superstructure
erected above it is sooner or later revolutionized (Marx, 1859/1969, p. 187-188).

A consequence of this conception is that the actions which are “inherent” to the social system, which tend to reinforce it, are also those which lead to its transformation, since these behaviors not only depend on the economic demands or ideological imperatives of the system at a given moment, but also on conflicting interests, which can contradict the interests of the dominant group. But this also indicates that processes of change are not mechanical. Rather, the methods themselves which individuals and groups use play an important role in them. And the methods preferred in maintaining or changing the established social system may very well depend on the social consciousness of the people.

Class consciousness and alienation are the two extremes between which individuals and groups move regarding the social system in which they live. Class consciousness is related to the visibility and outbreak of social conflict; in moments of crisis, when the reality of class control in the social system is exposed, an increase of class consciousness among conflicting factions usually arises, especially among the oppressed (See Martín-Baró, 1983b, Chapter 3). It should be noted that class consciousness is not only knowledge of the interests related to the social class to which one belongs. It also indicates the practical articulation of that knowledge, hence the importance of determining the positions of a society’s members in its system of relations, along with their level of class consciousness or alienation through which they understand their behavior.

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