Class conflict, frequently referred to as class warfare or class struggle, is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests and desires between people of different classes.
Class conflict can take many different forms: direct violence, such as wars fought for resources and cheap labor; indirect violence, such as deaths from poverty, starvation, illness or unsafe working conditions; coercion, such as the threat of losing a job or pulling an important investment; or ideology, either intentionally (as with books and articles promoting capitalism) or unintentionally (as with the promotion of consumerism through advertising). Additionally, political forms of class conflict exist; legally or illegally lobbying or bribing government leaders for passage of partisan desirable legislation including labor laws, tax codes, consumer laws, acts of congress or other sanction, injunction or tariff. The conflict can be open, as with a lockout aimed at destroying a labor union, or hidden, as with an informal slowdown in production protesting low wages or unfair labor practices.
Read more about Class Conflict: Usage, The USA and Similar Societies, Muslim Societies (Arab Spring), The Soviet Union and Similar Societies, Marxist Perspectives, Non-Marxist Perspectives, Class Vs. Race Struggle
Famous quotes containing the words class and/or conflict:
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
—Frederick Douglass (c.18171895)
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