Nature
Conflict between different social groups may result in violence and death, or be the cause and result of a widespread variety of discriminatory practices. Philosophers disagree as to whether conflict in society is necessary or not and creative or not. Certainly when it results in violence it can be seen as harmful.
Claim
Poverty generates conflict through lack of equal access to resources; conflict in its turn intensifies the competition for those few resources.
Counter-claim
There is evidence that social conflicts themselves produce the valuable ties that hold modern democratic societies together, and provide such ties with the strength and cohesion they need, that social conflicts are themselves pillars of democratic society.