Karl Marx

History is the history of class struggle. All that is solid melts into air. Men's ideas change with changes in the conditions of their material existence. Karl Marx was the founder of conflict theory, which argues that the competition of individuals and groups for wealth and power is the fundamental process shaping social structure. For conflict theories, basic questions about a social structure are "Who gets what and why?" Marx was born just after the …

…in Marx. Many conflict theorists are not Marxists, and there are many different varieties of Marxism, but virtually all conflict theorists recognize that Marx's theories raise fundamental questions about inequality, social structure and social dynamics. We shall approach Marxian theory in terms of the dynamics of positive feedback and Monopoly. In some ways, the most natural entry is in terms of the last four presidents of the American Sociological Association: Feagen, Massey, Reskin and Burawoy.