A Society Fighting for Social Change

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“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win” (Marx). While living in London as an adult Karl Marx realized that he was living in a very rich country but only small portion of the people were benefiting from the riches of the country and the larger portion was suffering from poverty. The people that were enjoying the riches of the country he referred to as capitalists, these people seek profit from the factories and businesses that the owned. Then there were the people he considered as proletarians, these people sold their labor for wages to the capitalist. Marx started to think of the idea of social conflict; Investopedia defines the conflict theory as “a state of perpetual conflict due to competition for limited resources. Conflict theory holds that social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than consensus and conformity. According to conflict theory, those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible, chiefly by suppressing the poor and powerless. Conflict theory also ascribes most of the fundamental developments in human history, such as democracy and civil rights, to capitalistic attempts to control the masses rather than to a desire for social order.” Social conflict can come about in many forms such as quarrels, rivalries or by war. In those times if you weren't born into a certain blood line, capitalist bloodline, you couldn't own anything. People that were born in poverty weren’t able to get out of it, they had to work for the rich people in order for them to provide for their families and survive from day to day which was often a struggle for them. People that were born in poverty remained in poverty for the rest of their lives. Marx divided the so...

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...t everything that they wanted but they teachers and public service workers got the agreement for full increase in their salaries and they got pay for the days they work out striking, they got a reform and they had a rollback on taxes which was changed from 1st February 2005 to 1st March 2005 (7 News Belize, Feb. 11, 2005). The proletarians proved that Marx idea of conflict creating change is true but in order for change to be successful society needs to unite and refuse to take give up until they got change.

Works Cited

Marx, K. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/conflict-theory.asp
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=2700&frmsrch=1
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=6613&frmsrch=1

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