Abstract
The Sociology of Conflict and Violence demonstrates the links between capitalism and three main forms of violence in the US: structural, organizational, and interpersonal. Violence is defined as acts, intentional or not, that result in physical harm to another person or persons. Health and safety data and militarism are discussed to show that harm resulting from social structure and from organizational decisions is greater than the harm resulting from interpersonal violence. High levels of economic inequality are linked to high levels of political inequality leading to the three types of violence. Our thinking about violence is manipulated to stress interpersonal violence, while other types are often ignored. Violence associated with race/ethnicity and gender inequality can also be tied to social structure. A discussion of non-violent conflict resolution concludes my discussion, stressing the importance of social movements and the sociological variables that, sometimes, make non-violent movements successful.
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Chasin, B.H. (2018). Inequality and Violence. In: Haltinner, K., Hormel, L. (eds) Teaching Economic Inequality and Capitalism in Contemporary America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71141-6_16
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