Class Conflict And Inequality: Consequences And Impacts In Pakistan

Class Conflicts

Class conflict which is also known as class struggle and class rivalry is the political tension and economic antipathy that exists in society subsequent to socio-economic competitions and battles among the social classes. The types of class conflict can involve direct violence, for example, fighting over resources and cheap labor and assassinations; indirect violence, for example, deaths from poverty (poorness) and starvation, ailment (illness) and perilous working environment. Economic coercion, for example, the risk of unemployment (joblessness) or the withdrawal of investment capital or ideologically, by using the political literature. Furthermore, political forms of class warfare may include legal and illegal lobbying, and buying off (bribing) of legislators (officials).The social-class conflict could prove to be direct, such as in a dispute between labor and management, for example, a single employer's industrial lockout of their employees in making an effort for weakening the bargaining powers of the analogous (corresponding) trade union; or social-class conflict can also be indirect, like in a workers' slowdown of production in protest against the unfair labor practices, such as low wages and poor workplace conditions. Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, in their political and research and theories regarded class struggle as a central belief and a practical way for effecting the radical social and political changes for the social majority to establish supremacy.

These conflicts are mostly truth, a crisis that can weaken or strengthen it, a critical event that may bring lasting resentment, smoldering hostility, psychological scars. Few people accept the fact that conflicts are part of life and not necessarily important assumption of conflict theory is that human relationships and social structures all experience inequalities of individuals and groups that can benefit from a particular structure of society tend to work to maintain those structures so as to retain and to enhance their power. The results suggest that people across income levels experience a range of positive emotions. As the frequency of certain feeling vary with social class. Top earners experienced more self-oriented positive emotions, such as pride, contentment, and amusement. A person's social class has a significant impact on their physical health, medical care and nutrition, and their life expectancy. Additionally, people with less SES have to experience a much higher rate of health issues than those of higher SES. It matters to sociologists because the fact that it exists reflects unequal access to rights, resources, and power in society what we all call social stratification. As such, it has a strong effect on the access an individual has to education, the quality of that education, and how high a level he or she can reach.

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The sociologist Marx’s conflict theory focused on the conflict between two primary classes. Every class consists of a group of people bound by mutual interests and a degree of property ownership, often supported by the state. The bourgeoisie represents the members of society who hold the majority of the wealth and means. Marx's most popular theory was 'historical materialism', arguing that history is the result of material conditions, rather than ideas. Marx's believed that religion, morality, social structures and other things are all rooted in economics. Conflict is often something that we try to avoid. Positive conflict is constructive in nature. It produces new ideas, solves continuous problems, provides an opportunity for people and teams to expand their skills, and fosters creativity. When opposing ideas are explored, a breakthrough of thinking can occur. There are many types of societal conflicts throughout history can be explained using the central tenets of conflict theory. Some theorists, including Marx, believe that societal conflict is the force that ultimately drives change and development in society.

Conflict theories tell us that competition is a constant and, at times, an overwhelming factor in nearly every human relationship and interaction. Competition is always the scarcity of resources, including material resources–money, property, commodities, and more. The material resources, individuals and groups within a society also compete for intangible resources as well. They can include leisure time, dominance, social status, sexual partners, etc. Conflict theorists assume that competition is the default.

Conflict theorist’s assumption that conflict occurs between social classes, one outcome of this conflict is a revolutionary event. The idea is that change in a power dynamic between groups does not happen as the result of a gradual adaptation. When it comes about as the symptom of conflict between these groups, this way, changes to a power dynamic are often abrupt and large in scale, rather than gradual and evolutionary

Inequality

Inequality (unfairness and discrimination) is defined as the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards by performing different roles (behavior expected out of someone) or for different statuses (social positions, a person holds at a given time period) inside a group or society. It can include many structured and recurrent patterns of uneven or unjust divisions of goods, wealth, opportunities, rewards, and punishments, etc. History has proven that huge inequalities in wealth and income persist and do not usually cause rebellion and warfare. In fact, very regularly they do now not. Thus, the query of the way inequality relates to battle remains. An overview of the literature indicates that some inequalities count greater than others. Inequalities can arise between individuals, growing social lessons, but additionally between international locations and among cultural or ethnic agencies.

Inequalities could be of several things as the common problem faced by several economies which are inequality of distribution of income. As there are different classes in a society and mostly higher class and middle class are capable to pay tax and so there tax is collected and distributed in poor and needy people however, this is not the reality as first of all people do tax evasion which is they try to escape from paying tax by showing their values and wealth with low market value which enables them to pay less tax thus the less income is generated to government and so the distribution could not be possible.

Therefore, the second thing in which way tax is collected some of the government created regressive tax collection method in which the tax is collected as the lower the income the higher the tax which created in equalities. Lastly, the distribution of income is unequal as the percentage stated is also unequal in that way rich get richer and poor get poorer.

Therefore, this was the economic inequality thus there is another type of inequality which is social inequality. Social inequality is characterized by the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society. As it could be unequal distribution of rewards, punishment, jobs and wealth. These inequalities are the causes of power and status as people using their power in negative way and providing jobs to the people with good status, in a society people with more power and status is awarded and are provided jobs instead of whom they deserve.

Inequalities cause several problems as poverty, as if the income or wealth would be not distributed equally so the people might not get their rights and it would lead to poverty. Thus, providing jobs and reward unequally would lead to suicide and increase in death rates. As unequal distribution of income wealth and unequal taxes collection or tax evasion would lead to economic instability and financial crises as inflation also. As it would not be fair pay or inequalities pay as workers with same job or same task assigned might be offered different pay this might lead to workers being jealous and not satisfied thus it would lead to unemployment increase or the productivity would be affected and inefficiency also.

As social inequalities would affect education as if there would be improper or unequal distribution so the people could not afford to educate their children and it would also increase crime as if there would be nothing to eat or no resources so they would commit crime so they could live. Therefore, Health is an important factor and with inequalities poor or low class people could not afford that and there health is affected which leads to diseases and result in decrease in happiness factor.

The sociologist Max Weber uses social classes to examine wealth and status. According to max Weber, social class is strongly associated with prestige and privileges. Over here it explains that social reproduction, the tendency of social classes to remain stable across generations maintaining most of their inequalities as well. These inequalities include differences in income, wealth, access to education, pension levels, social status, and socioeconomic safety-net. In general, social class can be defined as a large category of similarly positioned people located in a hierarchy and distinguished from other large categories in the hierarchy by such traits as occupation, education, income, and wealth.

Inequality between International locations

Looking at inequality between nations basically manner looking at poverty. Research via across the world famed professionals like Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambaing has shown a sturdy link among the wealth of a country and the chance of it laid low with civil struggle. The threat of civil warfare is an awful lot better in poor than in rich countries. USA with a GDP according to capita of $250 has a 15 percent risk of descending into warfare at some point within the coming five years even as, in a rustic with a GDP of $1250 consistent with individual, the probabilities are less than 4%. It is a whole lot less expensive to recruit rebels in a negative use, wherein wages are low and unemployment high, than in a wealthy country, in which prices are a great deal better and the kingdom is probably to have greater resources to deter a likely rise up. For instance, inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior officer’s profits are less than $100 a month and often go unpaid. One of the commanders of a rebel organization in the east of the United States of America recalled the instant he turned into recruited: “I had spent five months in a schooling camp in Kinshasa without profits. My family changed into going hungry. When [General Laurent] Nkandla started out recruiting, I noticed I didn’t have any alternative.”

Inequality inside Nations

But can inequality within a rustic also motive war? A renowned concept, nonetheless influential today, is Ted Gurr’s Relative Deprivation Theory. Gurr argues that a massive gap between collections’ predicted and actual economic and dwelling conditions can gas conflict. While Gurr does not talk explicitly about gaps between wealthy and terrible, arguably, frustrations approximately the space between expected and actual residing situations are in all likelihood to growth even greater when the poor are constantly faced in their everyday lives by the conditions of the rich. The Occupy motion originated from such frustrations, and a survey inside the United States determined that a growing percentage of Americans see struggle among the rich and the poor.

Social Cohesion

Recognizing the rising expectancies of growing middle instructions in growing nations, the OECD’s document Perspectives on Global Development 2012 centered on social brotherly love: “Social cohesion is likewise a way that permits residents to live in societies in which they enjoy a sense of belonging and believe. The inference is that the absence of social brotherly love may also bring about instability”. Tunisia and Thailand are cited as examples of countries wherein salaries are rising and schooling improving, however wherein enhancements in equalities and political participation are lagging at the back of. The unrest in Thailand in December 2010 and the Tunisian revolution that sooner or later brought about the ousting of President Ben Ali display that this will result in violence.

An important element of the OECD’s idea of social cohesion is as a consequence the degrees of inequality in a society and the capability of humans to conquer them. The OECD argues that social cohesion is a treasured purpose in itself and allows hold long-time period monetary growth. The report focuses strongly on rising inequalities in developing nations, which have to be leveled through economic regulations and thru employment and social safety. Other coverage areas which might key to social brotherly love consist of schooling, gender and migration.

Class Conflict and Inequality in Pakistan

The issues of class conflicts and inequality are justified with the increasing gaps between the populations of Pakistan. Different classes exist in Pakistan. Therefore, it is because of this variety of different people in Pakistan, there is clearly a lot of present class conflict and inequality between the classes in the Pakistani society. There a lot of difficulties and challenged faced in the Pakistani society because of class conflict and inequality and out of these few are given below:

1. Educational Issues: Many people belonging to different classes face many educational issues because other people consider these people as low level people and so, they are not given any education. Therefore, their knowledge and information does not increase and they are unable to build their personality properly.
2. Badly Mistreated: In Pakistani society, many people belonging to different are made fun of and are mistreated like for example, other people throw something like drink or water on them and run away. In the same way, they beat up people from other class level for no reason and give them insulting remarks. They take wrong advantage and completely mistreat people of low class level.
3. Poor Health System: In the Pakistani society, people from low class level are not provided with good health system. If they get sick, there health is not given proper attention as other people in the society consider some like pathetic and weak people and think of them as a joke. So, people belonging to low class level face many health issues in the society as well.
4. No Justice: People belonging to low class level are also treated unfairly when it comes to justice in the Pakistani society. They are not given equal rights like if some normal people from higher class do something bad, he might put blame on people belonging to low class level and as a result, they are severely punished for no reason. Therefore, there is no equality for weak and poor people of low class level when compared to other people of higher class level in society.
5. No Social Interactions: People give no importance to low class level and do not interact with them often. The higher class level gives them little importance. They consider them as weak and pathetic people and completely ignore them. In other words, no one wants to be friends with a person who belongs to a low class level.
6. Unemployment: A major challenge faced by people belonging to low class level in the Pakistani society is that they do not get much employment opportunities. They are considered worthless people and they are also underrated. Other people do not consider them capable of doing any work and tasks and they are not given any job opportunities and it is very difficult for the people belonging to low class level to earn money and look after their family. Therefore, unemployment is a very major issue in Pakistan that needs to be controlled.
7. Upward Mobility: One more very major difficulty due to class conflict and inequality in the Pakistani society is upward mobility. It means that rich remain rich and poor remain poor. So, people who are poor, they are considered as low class level people and no value is given to them and once again inequality becomes a major factor. The rich people do everything they can to make sure that the poor people stay poor and not improve their lifestyle.
8. Gender Inequality: Gender Inequality is yet another major issue in Pakistan. Gender inequality is a deep-rooted menace in Pakistan where men are masters of women’s future as women are not allowed to get education and even if they do, it is up to around class 7 or 8 and they are considered to be responsible for performing house activities like washing, cooking, and cleaning instead of doing studies. The women are considered inferior by men and they show them no respect. So, gender inequality is yet another major issue in Pakistan for which a solution is required.

Conclusion

As researchers use quantitative variables such as income or wealth to measure inequality, on an examination of the data, patterns are found that indicate these other social variables contribute to income or wealth as intervening variables. Important inequalities in income and wealth are found when specific socially defined categories of people are compared. As the most pervasive of these variables are sex/gender, race, and ethnicity. This is not to say, in societies wherein merit is considered to be the primary factor determining one's place or rank in the social order, that merit has no effect on variations in income or wealth, and these other socially defined characteristics can, and often do, intervene in the valuation of merit. Investment of capital leads to returns on investment (ROI) and increased capital accumulation. The hypothesis that economic inequality is a necessary precondition for economic growth has been a mainstay of liberal economic theory. Latest research, particularly over the first two decades of the 21st century, has called this basic assumption into question. While growing inequality does have a positive correlation with economic growth over here is under specific sets of conditions, inequality in general is not positively correlated with economic growth and, under some conditions, shows a negative correlation with economic growth.