Another famous theorists, Karl Marx, raised concerns about another set of problems, those of exploitation and the unequal distribution of key resources. Rather than conceiving society as being based on consensus, as did Durkheim, Marx posited the society, especially capitalist society, is shaped by an ongoing conflict between the bourgeoisie or the owners of businesses and the proletariat or workers over the distribution of surplus value, or what we might call profits. According to Marx, all social problems, especially those of a material nature can ultimately be traced back to this fundamental class conflict. Marx argues that humankind's material needs for food, shelter, housing, and energy are crucial to understanding any society and its problems. All social life is dependent upon fulfilling these basic needs. This is as true today as it was in pre-modern times. Do not be fooled, Marx suggests, we are as dependent upon nature as ever. The quest to meet basic material needs was humans primary goal then and remains central today. However, men and women are, in his words, perpetually dissatisfied animals. Our struggle against nature does not cease when we gratify our primary need to survive. New needs, what he calls secondary needs, emerge when we find the means to satisfy our primary needs. In order to satisfy these primary and secondary needs, Marx argued, men and women form societies. The first types of societies which were highly communal in nature, where based on a very limited division of labor in which men hunted, and women and children gathered vegetables and grains. These societies were fairly egalitarian in the sense whatever goods were captured or collected by individuals were assumed to belong to the community at large. As societies modernized a more specialized division of labor that Durkheim disgust began to emerge in human societies. However, unlike Durkheim, Marx believed this division leads not to the creation of complimentary groups, but antagonistic ones, or what he calls classes. From this point on, Marx argued, humans engage in class conflict in order to meet their primary and secondary needs. Especially in capitalist society, where things and people are commodified or turned into goods sold on a market. This conflict involves, again, a struggle between owners and workers over the distribution of profits. This conflict has several important outcomes. One of which is especially relevant to human suffering, which is that the quest for profit leads business owners to squeeze wages to the lowest possible amount. This not only threatens to impoverish ordinary people, but creates enormous problems of economic inequality.
