Conflict Theory and Deviance

Deviance, the violation of dominant societal norms, is defined from a sociological perspective. The major theorists associated with conflict theory, including Karl Marx and Max Weber, are discussed. Class is established as the major element in deviance from a conflict perspective. How systems work to legitimate those in power is discussed, as well as the dominant norms members are expected to follow. White-collar crime is discussed, as is the prison-industrial complex. The article explores those who control the media, and looks at studies that negate the idea that class and wealth distribution is the source of deviance. A brief look at the major sociological perspective of structural functionalism and its arguments for the causes of deviance in societies is also included.

Keywords Anomie; Assimilation; Criminology; Cultural Capital; Deviance; Differential Association; Hegemony; Ideological State Apparatus; False Consciousness; Norms; Prison-industrial Complex; Stratification; Uniform Crime Report

Overview

Defining Deviance

Deviance, according to sociologists, is defined as behavior or appearance that violates, or goes against, the norms of society. In every society, there are unwritten rules, called norms, and those who break those rules are considered deviant. But just being different is not what it is to be deviant. There are rare positions in societies, like being a famous baseball player, for instance, and it is not considered deviant to occupy these roles. Also, some very common behaviors are seen as deviant, like cheating on one's spouse. Deviance is not always criminal; one can be socially deviant by breaking the informal rules of a society. For example, a woman who doesn't shave her legs is considered deviant, but for such "odd" behaviors, people are often informally stigmatized in societies, rather than formally punished.

The dominant norms in American society can be directly traced to those who first established the United States: white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. Consequently, the history of America has been a battle between the dominant norms of a relative few and the norms of various groups that challenge them. In any society, when minority groups start to accept the norms and values of the dominant group, it is called assimilation, or acculturation. All societies expect new members to take on the existing norms. Still, one of the ways societies change is for the dominant structure to adopt some parts of minority cultures. This has occurred in America regularly and is seen in our acceptance of music generally associated with African American culture, like rock and roll, which came out of the American South in the 1950s.

Sociologists recognize that it is very difficult, without training and awareness, to see these rules that define a society. So, one of the ways to see them more clearly is to notice them in relationship to another culture's norms. When you go on vacation or move to another country, it is then that your own norms become clearer. It is also possible to be trained to see these norms. One of the ways sociologists understand norms is to do norm breaching experiments. A researcher will go out into a social setting and intentionally break the rules and record the reaction of others (Garfinkel, 1967). Sociologists are looking for how others react to the norm breaching, attempting to judge what rules apply and how people are sanctioned, or rewarded or punished, for engaging in various behaviors.

Conflict Theory & Deviance

Conflict theorists see the social world as defined by those who have power in any society. The term "conflict" is used in this theory not because there is necessarily literal conflict between those who are in power and those who are not. Rather, this term is used to express a conflict of interest between the two groups; that is to say, what is beneficial for one group is not good for the other. For example, for a business owner who has wage laborers, it is not in his interest to raise wages. In fact, it is in his interest to keep wages as low as possible. But, naturally, it is in the interest of the worker to have higher wages. So, by definition, these two groups have a conflict of interest.

For the conflict theorist, those who have power, whether it is economic, political, or social, are the ones who define the norms of a society. Karl Marx is the sociological theorist who first identified the idea that those who have control over the production of goods and services, mainly in the form of wealth and ownership of property, have control over all information, and therefore, how those in the society think. For Marx, the capitalist economic system creates wider and wider disparities, or differences, between the rich and the poor. To fully understand Marx, one must see that one of the central tenets, or rules, in capitalism is to achieve wealth, ideally through profit. Marx tried to show that this tenet, and many others that define capitalism, were the most powerful in society; he believed the economic form of a society takes precedence over all other social institutions.

Karl Marx believed that the ideologies of a society, the belief systems upon which we depend in order to make sense of the world, were produced by the wealthy because they owned the means to communicate (Marx & Engels, 1976). Conflict theorists contend that those who hold wealth and power have an interest in insuring that the masses hold particular beliefs, like individualism and competition, because believing they could somehow achieve wealth and power keep those who are not in power from rebelling against the system of oppression. His earliest work focused on how those who hold wealth have the means to form and maintain our ideologies, or our core beliefs, and one of the most important aspects of this control of ideas is that people are not aware that it is happening to them. In order to make sure people don't rebel against the system of dominance, the ruling class is made legitimate by creating and sustaining ways of thinking that seem fair. An Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, called this type of domination “cultural hegemony” (1971). An example of this might be that most Americans — even those who own very little property — believe ideas like competition or private property are simply the way things should be. Speaking out publicly in the United States against, say, private property, is being deviant. This type of social system is very successful because those who are not necessarily benefiting from it support it. Marx called this false consciousness.

Class & Crime

Most conflict theorists argue that inequalities based in class struggles are the reason for crime and deviance. In other words, capitalism creates a stratified, or layered, system because it requires inequality to insure there are workers willing to work for wages and produce goods and services. Owners do not work for wages, but co-opt a portion of the profit that workers create by making the product. Capitalism also produces a level of poverty and, therefore, powerlessness. In capitalism, members are driven to desire wealth, even though it is impossible for everyone to have wealth. This puts most of the members in a very precarious situation since not all members have access to wealth, but most members believe if they work hard enough they can achieve it. In order to access the labor market, or get a job, certain dominant norms must be followed. These norms are created and perpetuated by the owners, not the workers.

Max Weber, also a conflict theorist, did not agree with Marx that the economy was the most powerful social institution. For Weber, it is the systems of power and organization that define societies, adding that those who have power over others, defined as the ability to control others (Weber, 1947) are the source of inequality. Power may or maybe not exist because of unequal distributions of wealth. Economics is one source of inequality, with others being power and status. Weber, then, did not see economics as more important than other major social institutions like religion or politics.

Weber's position on deviance is not as clear as some of the other theorists, although he wrote briefly on the topic of anomie (Orru, 1989), which is a term that describes societies and individuals in a state of social disorder in which the norms are unclear, making it easier for people to be deviant. He did, however, see deviance as a path to social change. Weber's excellent study on religion and its power to effect social change, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, shows how Martin Luther's famous act of deviance against the Catholic Church in 1517 not only altered the direction of Western religions, it also created a landscape of possibility that was necessary for capitalism to thrive three centuries later.

Critical Theory

Sociologists are careful to note that crime is not the only form of deviance. A branch of conflict theory called critical theory concerns itself more directly with the enormous amount of social control that goes into keeping people from being, not just criminally deviant, but socially deviant. For these thinkers, those of us living in Western democratic systems are duped into believing we are free; however, most aspects of our lives are mechanized to the point of dehumanization. Critical theory holds that there is an elite group that defines the society and perpetuates the myth that we are a democratic structure. Under these circumstances, those who criticize the system must be controlled. Since we technically have freedoms such as speech and assembly, those who attempt to reveal the true system of power and oppression must be termed deviant. This is particularly true for anyone who questions the systems of authority. There are also subtle messages to those who are "odd" in behavior or thinking.

An example of this is atheism in the United States. A 2006 study showed that Americans fear atheists more than they fear Muslims; Americans are more likely to vote for a Muslim than an atheist (Edgell, Gerteis, & Hartmann,2006). About 10 percent of Americans are either atheist or agnostic. Europeans are much more likely to be atheist, with France reporting 40 percent atheism (Higgins, 2007). Critical theorists see religion as a powerful form of social control that is perpetuated by a system that benefits from limiting ideologies through insuring that beliefs that are not mainstream are considered dangerous and deviant.

Ideological State Apparatus

Marxist theorist Louis Althusser contended that the norms that benefit those in power are conveyed to people through ordinary life; in schools, at work, through mass media which encourages loyalty to the state, called ideological state apparatus. At its most oppressive, the state uses the police, the prison and judicial systems, the military to insure conformity to the system. But the ideal is to use the lesser system, because people are less aware of it and less likely to rebel against it. The objective for the dominant group is to maintain positions of power, and by having the ability to define norms in both everyday life as well as on a structural level insures they are able to define deviance.

White-collar Crime

The American sociologist Edwin Sutherland developed the term “criminology” in the 1930s to describe the study of deviance. His pioneering theory of deviance, Differential Association theory, argues that people learn to be deviant through the groups with which they associate, whether it is an urban street gang or a corporate banker. Sutherland's theory that deviance is learned was in reaction to the theories of the past that said deviance is psychological or pathological. Sutherland also developed the term 'white collar-crime' to describe the type of crime that is only possible because of the person's social and employment status. Sociologists have long argued that these crimes, committed almost entirely by the middle and upper classes, are not punishable to the same extent as what is called "street crime" or "garden crime," because the social structure and the way crime is defined is through the lens of the powerful. The United States Uniform Crime Report, the FBI's official database of reported crime, lists no white collar crimes, only violent and non-violent street crime. The losses in the United States in street crime are approximately $4 billion per year; the losses in white collar crime are more staggering. The saving and loan crisis of the 1980s is estimated at $300 to 500 billion, health care fraud is estimated at $100 to $400 annually, auto repair about $40 billion, securities fraud, $15 billion (Leap, 2007). White-collar crime is perceived as non-violent and committed by wayward, though still upstanding citizens.

Culture & Deviance

One of the most interesting sociologists to look at how capitalism works to keep out certain members is the French thinker Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu claims that in all societies, there are cultural norms that dominate. In order to gain status in any society, or any organization for that matter, people have to seem like they are one of the crowd. This includes all types of behavior: how to dress, how to speak, what music is important, which table utensils to use. To act like those who are members of the dominant group is to be able to "get your foot in the door," and Bourdieu calls this acquiring "cultural capital." Those who either refuse to behave or are not capable of behaving in these ways are considered deviant. Bourdieu's theory is in many ways based in Marx's, but he is different in a couple of significant ways. First, he believes that culture is the way societies, and therefore deviance, are defined. Marx believed that economics was the dominant factor in all societies to date. Bourdieu also holds that there are various types of capital (economic, social, symbolic) in any given social situation which can be accessed or denied. Marx believed that only wealth mattered.

Strain Theory

The American structural functionalist Robert Merton differed with Emile Durkheim about why certain groups tend to be deviant more than others. Where Durkheim claimed that deviance comes out of a lack of social order that is the result of a lack of cohesion, or common social bonds, Merton took ideas from conflict theory to create a theory that allows for deviance in the context of certain economic forms, in this case capitalism. Merton said that because the norms of capitalism include acquiring wealth, but all members don't have equal access to the workplace, some members are forced to deviate in order to fulfill this social expectation. Merton (1938) observed that the goals for those accumulating wealth and achieving status are the same for the majority of members, but not everyone has the same ability to achieve these goals legitimately. So, the means used to acquire wealth and status are what differs between groups. For example, people who are raised in poverty stricken neighborhoods in America do not get the same quality of public education as those who grow up in middle class or upper class neighborhoods. This means those in the lower classes don't have the skills to get into college or access the job market, but there is still the desire to have wealth and status. So, the result is to, for example, sell illegal drugs, which allows a certain level of status and wealth. For Merton, using deviant means to fulfill goals that are otherwise inaccessible to the members is what causes a certain type of deviance in capitalist societies he calls "non-conformists."

Applications

Media Power

In 2008, six major corporations own more the 95 percent of all media in the United States, according to the public interest group the Center for Public Integrity (http://projects.publicintegrity.org/). These corporations have other economic interests that keep them from being self-critical; for example, NBC, the largest media conglomerate in the world, also owns General Electric which manufactures appliances. But General Electric also makes jet engines for fighter planes and in the early 1990s was found guilty of defrauding the U.S. Department of Defense and later corruption charges were brought against the company in relation to jet engines sold to Israel. Conflict theorists point out that it is not in the interest of NBC or GE to publicly discuss their role in defense contracts or our country's foreign policy and will actively discourage people from questioning the possible relationship. One way of doing this is to label those who are opposed to foreign policy, particularly in regards to defense, deviants.

This was done quite successfully in the 1960s, when large groups of students protested American foreign policy. To emphasize the deviant nature of the student's behavior, the media often paired students who were opposed to the war in Viet Nam with extremely radical groups like the Black Panthers, a group developed to bring public awareness to the institutional oppression of African Americans in general, and specifically point out the level of police brutality against blacks. By creating the possibility that a relationship could exist between students voicing their freedom speech peacefully and the quasi-militant group that was working to alleviate oppression among blacks in a much more radical way, many who might have been willing to publicly oppose the war were coerced into being quiet.

The Prison-Industrial Complex

Another way of using the lens of the conflict theorist to understand deviance in society is to look at who goes to prison and why. The prison system in the United States has grown to over 2 million over the past two decades. Each day, 138 people are added to the system in some way. A surprisingly high percentage, between 30 and 55 percent, depending on the state, are black men (Leach & Cheney, 2002). A conflict perspective sees this disproportionate number of men of color incarcerated as more evidence that some members of society are deviant simply by being of a particular ethnicity and unwilling to assimilate. Dominated groups are expected to assimilate, or buy into the dominant society, and when they don't they are penalized.

A 1998 report on the problem of soaring prison population is Eric Schlosser's "The Prison-Industrial Complex." The work looks at the idea that the public supports legislation that allows an increase in mandatory sentencing because most Americans fear males of color. Mandatory minimum sentencing puts thousands in prison for crimes who would never have been sent there under earlier laws. This is coupled with the privatization of some prisons across the country, run by the rules of capitalism, and operating solely for profit. So, the inmates produce goods in private prisons, but the prisons are not required to pay inmates minimum wage (LeBaron, 2008). The implication is that it benefits the owners of the prisons to have more prisoners. Legislators are seduced by lobbyists for the private prisons, and they all benefit from the incarceration of thousands of minority group members and poor people.

The description of the prison system as the "prison-industrial complex" comes from the phrase "military-industrial complex," coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to describe the powerful relationship between corporations, the government, and the military. The three entities had become, after World War II, so intertwined and dependent on one another that their interests had all become the same: to promote fear among Americans (in the case of the late 1950s of the Soviet Union) in order to continue public support of increased armaments and a larger defense budget. Eric Schlosser's (1998) work on the prison-industrial complex takes the same notions of fear and the interconnectedness of legitimated leaders and critiques the penal system in America.

Viewpoints

Structural Functionalism

There are several responses to the conflict perspective's claim that deviance lies in class and power relationships. From a structural-functionalist perspective, the best explanation for deviance is a lack of social bonds, or cohesion, among members. That is, some groups are less likely to buy into the dominant normative structure, or assimilate, and so they don't have the sense of unity that is necessary to insure that they don't violate others in the society. Structural functionalists look to the social order, or how harmonious social relationships are and how well the social institutions, like the family or religion, are working in society. While deviance is part of all healthy, normal societies, when levels of deviance grow too great, it is a sign of anomie. This is often attributed to the complex societal states that come from industrialized societies; levels of deviance are much lower in preindustrial cultures. The main theorist to look at deviance from this perspective is Emile Durkheim.

There are also several studies that show class is not the explanation for deviance. A 1980 study showed there was no relationship between class and delinquency among high school youths. Krohn, et. al. (1980) looked at upper, middle, and working class schools and found no support for the idea that class is a predictor of deviance among youth. Still another study looked at the relationship between class and deviance across three states and found no relationship between class and deviance. Tittle and Villemez (1977) contend that the dominant theories in the field of deviance that are bound to the idea that class is the source of deviance must be reconsidered.

Conclusion

Deviance, from a conflict perspective, can be best explained by looking at the systems of wealth, power, and domination. It is not only that those who have control over wealth are in positions of power to determine who is deviant. They also are in positions to define what deviance is, both criminally and socially. Reactions against these definitions of deviance are then met with further accusations of being deviant. In this way, the systems of power in any society can be maintained and those who occupy the prestigious positions are legitimated.

Terms & Concepts

Anomie: A social condition in which norms and values are not clearly defined, thus producing higher rates of deviance.

Assimilation: Members not already part of the dominant cultural group, either immigrants or oppressed groups within the society, take on the norms or the dominant group.

Criminology: A term coined by Edwin Sutherland in the 1930s, it is the study of deviance.

Cultural Capital: The benefits that come from understanding and adhering to the dominant norms and values in any society or organization.

Differential Association: A theory of deviance developed by Edwin Sutherland in which one learns to be deviant because of one’marxs associates.

Hegemony: The control of ideas through the legitimation of a group of elites who benefit from these ideas.

Ideological State Apparatus: The use of a legitimate government as the means of insuring that those in power maintain their status; this occurs in everyday life ideally, but under the worst circumstances, will be implemented by force.

False Consciousness: To support a system of domination, while being exploited by it.

Prison-industrial complex: An explanation for the enormous rise in the prison population in America; it assumes there is a relationship between legislators and private prisons owners, who both benefit from large numbers of people incarcerated.

Stratification: The unequal hierarchy of classes into which groups of people are categorized based on socioeconomic status, race, gender or education.

Uniform Crime Report: The FBI's annual official crime report.

Bibliography

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Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from prison notebooks. London: New Left Books.

Higgins, A. (2007, April 12). As religious strife grows, Europe's atheists seize pulpit. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, 249 , A1–A11.

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Merton, R. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3 , 672–682. Retrieved August 29, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=12781867&site=ehost-live

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Suggested Reading

Antonaccio, O., Tittle, C. R., Botchkovar, E., & Kranidiotis, M. (2010). The correlates of crime and deviance: Additional evidence. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 47, 297–328. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=52545929

Becker, H. S. (1968). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. Glenscoe, IL: Free Press.

Huck, J. L., Lee, D. R., Bowen, K. N., Spraitz, J. D., & Bowers, J. H. (2012). Specifying the dynamic relationships of general strain, coping, and young adult crime. Western Criminology Review, 13, 25–45. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=88995911

Lesieur, H. R. (1979). Book review-essays. Criminal Justice Review 4 , 95–100. Retrieved August 31, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=15613688&site =ehost-live

Rosenfeld, R. (1989). Robert Merton's contributions to the sociology of deviance. Sociological Inquiry, 59 , 453–466. Retrieved September 1, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with FullText: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=13794129&site=ehost-live

Wright, M. (2008). Making good: Prisons, punishment and beyond. Hook, England: Waterside Press.