 Dear students, in this module we are going to talk about a very interesting and perhaps one of the very dominating perspective of sociology which is the conflict perspective. Conflict perspective as postulated by Karl Marx describes the inequality or the inherent inequality being produced by the modern societies. Karl Marx thinks that the society can be explained only by conflict, especially the modern society. Conflict is the essence of modern social life. Conflict emphasizes the role of conflict and power and the ability of some of those in power to influence on those who are not in power to have that social control. Marx thinks that there are two types of groups in the society. One is those who have abundant resources and the other is those who have no resources. Those who have the resources and those who do not have the resources. And those who have the resources, they can exploit those who do not have the resources based on the certain composition of the society. Society as a group is heavily determined by the economic system, as per Karl Marx. Why it is heavily determined by the economic system is that all the social institutions of the society have a predominant role in economic resources or economic functioning. And those who have resources can control other people with the help of exploitative positions. And these controlling positions reflect dominantly in your political powers. The second type of system is not only producing your economic system, but also your other predominantly political institutions. And social order is maintained not by the consensus but by the domination of power in the hands of others, in the hands of those with the greatest political and economic social resources. When consensus exists, people being united around common interests are often in opposition to the other groups. Continuous tussles are in two groups, one is called proletariat and the other is called bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie class keeps generating maximum capital or maximum resources for the exploitation of the workers in the economic system. And the working class keeps the subsistence level only. So persisting only because of the groups who are economically at advantageous position and by using these social positions they can do their personal betterment. While on the other hand those who are on unequal positions they are always being submissive, they are always being disadvantageous position at the disadvantageous position. So in a nutshell shaping the beliefs of the other members of the society by controlling the public information holding power in institutions such as education and religion that shapes what people think and what people know. Overall a functionalist perspective it explains by the fact that whatever is happening in society is happening because of the conflictive nature that is inherently being produced by the modern capitalist economic system.