In the words of Karl Marx, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains." This quote serves the basis for one of Karl Marx's more popular theories, Social Conflict, which serves as the framework for my research paper. Social conflict theory was chosen for this research paper because I believe it is present in all societies on our planet. This theory states that groups within our society differ in the amount of resources and material goods available to them and that the more powerful groups often exploit the groups with less power. The scary aspect of social conflict theory is that the more powerful groups willingly exploit the weaker groups without concern for their well-being, their decisions are often based on the idea of the "greater good" for humanity with "acceptable losses" being an option.
According to Kate Ward and Kenneth R. Himes study done in 2011 by the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that the top 20% of Americans faced much faster income growth than the bottom 80%, the top 1% enjoyed the fastest income growth of all. The gap in wealth inequality, the total of a person's riches minus any debts owed, is much higher than the income gap. In terms of wealth the top 1% of households is in control of 35.4% of all wealth while the 90% combine for 23.3% (Kate Ward and Kenneth R. Himes 2014). As we are told there is an increasing gap in inequality, this does not only affect developed nations but those in developing nations also have an increasing gap between those who have and those who don't. In 1979 an author named Irving Kristol explained that inequality, despite any empirical evidence, does not prove inequality to be an important issue. Today evidence suggest otherwise, while some say that if the lower and middle groups are still experiencing income growth that it does not matter if the top percent experience it at a faster pace, modern economists suggest that a concentration of wealth within a small group can create a variety of problems.