[aninhumer]

Yeah, that's a reasonable criticism. I read your first comment as suggesting he didn't recognise conflict theory as existing.

My instinct is also to characterise the theories in a similar way. I'd describe it as how things ought to be (mistake theory) vs how to achieve that (conflict theory), but I guess that's kind of the same thing you're saying.

However, I'm not sure you can entirely separate these theories though. A mistake can be creating a society which encourages power imbalances, and a consequence of power imbalances can be societies that are less able to notice certain mistakes.

[ffxtian]

Re: your last paragraph, it seems to me that the question of "who wields power" will always have material priority -- one of the benefits of power is deciding what is and isn't a "mistake". Look at climate change -- no amount of scientific consensus or popular belief-that-it-is-a-mistake has succeeded in constraining those people whose activities are driving it (I'm speaking not just of DJT's recent escapades in pulling the US from the Paris deal, but the insufficiency of Paris itself). This is power. No amount of problem-identifying/solving has (or will) convince the captains of industry that maintaining their current economic growth targets is less preferable than making vast swaths of the earth less hospitable to life.