Dahrendorf(1959, 1968) as cited by Ritzer (2000)
SOCIETY
-CONSENSUS
•This
THEORY
is a theory of right and wrong
which means literally “An action is
right if everyone agrees that it is.”
-CONSENSUS
THEORY
•See
shared norms and values as
fundamental to society
•Focus
on social order
Social Order takes place if people will do their tasks and
follow what is expected of them. Examples, obeying traffic
rules
Social order can be achieved through Social control.
Rules and regulations lead to social order.
-
Social Control is the means by which people
are led to do their expected roles. If society is to
function effectively and efficiently, its members
must act the way they should be as members of
society.
-Strengths of Consensus Theory:.
•This
theory’s excellence lies in the
fact that debate, dialogue,
discussion, and perspective-taking
would continue until every qualified
member of the community came to
see the same truth.
-Strengths of Consensus Theory:.
•It
is all-inclusive. In theory, every person
involved in the decision-making-process
would be consulted and all opinions would
be measured as equally important.
-Weaknesses of Consensus Theory:
•Communities
these days are too big to get
everyone’s vote on every issue; decisions
on the right course of action would never
get decided successfully since the process
to reach consensus would be very difficult.
-Weaknesses of Consensus Theory:
•Some
people are wiser, better listeners,
more agreeable, and have a better
understanding of right and wrong than
others do. So, it is not advisable to
attempt to get everyone to agree all the
time to know what is right.
-Weaknesses of Consensus Theory:
•Finally,
morality is about right decisions, and just
because a group of people gets together and
decides to do a certain thing does not necessarily
mean it is actually right.
Conflict theory
- emphasizes the role of coercion and power, a
person's or group's ability to exercise influence
and control over others, in producing social
order.
- a disagreement or clash between opposing
ideas, principles, or people
- there is a dominance group and the subordinate
group
- It states that a society or organization
functions so that each individual
participant and its groups struggle to
maximize their benefits, which inevitably
contributes to social change such as
changes in politics and revolutions.



It is the theory that a continual struggle exists
between all different aspects of a particular society.
The struggle that occurs does not always have to
involve physical violence.
It can pertain to an underlying struggle for each
group or individual within a society to maximize its
own benefits.
-
-
The essence of conflict theory is best
epitomized by the classic 'pyramid structure' in
which an elite dictates terms to the larger
masses.
All major institutions, laws, and traditions in
the society are created to support those who
have traditionally been in power, or the groups
that are perceived to be superior in the society
according to this theory.
- This can also be expanded to include any society's
'morality' and by extension their definition of
deviance. Anything that challenges the control of
the elite will likely be considered 'deviant' or
'morally reprehensible.'
- In summary, conflict theory seeks to catalogue the
ways in which those in power seek to stay in
power. The conflict theory basically states that all
problems are caused by different groups and their
status and how they compete for the necessities in
life.
Primary assumptions of modern conflict:
1. competition
2. structural inequality
3. war
4. revolution
The following are four primary assumptions of
modern conflict theory:
1. Competition. Competition over scarce
resources (money, leisure, sexual partners,
and so on) is at the heart of all social
relationships. Competition rather than
consensus is characteristic of human
relationships.
2.
Structural inequality. Inequalities in power and
reward are built into all social structures.
Individuals and groups that benefit from any
particular structure strive to see it maintained.
3. War. Even war is a unifier of the societies
involved, as well as possibly ending whole
societies.
4. Revolution. Change occurs as a result of conflict
between competing social classes rather than
through adaptation. Change is often abrupt and
revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
Social Scientist of Conflict theory:





Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Samuel Bowles
William Waller
Hannah Arendt
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Focuses on the struggle of
social classes to
maintain dominance and
power in social systems
Friedrich Engels(1820-18595)
Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820 –
August 5, 1895) was a German social
scientist and philosopher, who developed
communist theory alongside his betterknown collaborator, Karl Marx.
Samuel Bowles(1939-present)

is an American economist and Professor
Emeritus at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught
courses on microeconomics and the theory
of institutions.

Bowles has challenged economic theories
that free markets and inequality maximize
efficiency, and argued that self-interested
financial incentives can produce behavior
that is inefficient and violates a society's
morality. He has argued that economies with
more equality, such as Asian countries, have
outperformed economies with more
inequality, such as Latin American countries

He state the causes and consequences of
economic inequality, with emphasis on the
relationship between wealth inequalities,
incomplete contracts, and governance of
economic transactions in firms, markets,
families and communities.
Hannah Arendt(1906-1975)

was a German-Jewish political theorist.
She has often been described as a
philosopher, although she always refused
that label on the grounds that philosophy is
concerned with "man in the singular." She
described herself instead as a political
theorist because her work centers on the
fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth
and inhabit the world."

Arendt's work deals with the nature of
power, and the subjects of politics,
authority, and totalitarianism. Much of her
work focuses on affirming a conception of
freedom which is synonymous with
collective political action among equals.
“Change means movement.
Movement means friction. Only in
the frictionless vacuum of a
nonexistent abstract world can
movement or change occur
without that abrasive friction of
conflict.”
Saul Alinsky
Thank You and God Bless Us All…