The Coal Miners in France During the Second Empire Essay -- World Hist

The Coal Miners in France During the Second Empire In this paper I will explain why revolt by the labor against capital in Second Empire France failed. To explain the situation, I will use Marx's theory of capital accumulation as he presents it in {Capital}. Also important in the theoretical description of this phenomena is the role of tradition and the way its restraints deviate from those of the economy in this French society. Based on this description I will discuss how the function of management is enforced by the economy and traditions inherent in a society. From these considerations I will suggest additional elements and relationships necessary for social relations change to transcend the institutional conditions in which they exist. Terminology relevent to a theoretical account of an event is given by Talcott Parsons in {The Structure of Social Action}. Here, action is described as a system that may be divided into unit acts. The unit act consists of four elements. First there is an agent, or actor. Second, the act has an end which is a future state of affairs or goal towards which the action is oriented. Third, there is a situation where the trends of develop- ment differ from the end towards which the action is oriented. The situation is composed of two elements; the conditions are that which the actor cannot manipulate in accordance with his end, and the means are that over which he does not have control. Finally there is a relation between these elements; where a situation allows alterna- tive means to the end, the course is selected from the normative orientation of the actor. (Parsons, 1968: 44) In order to account for the interrelationships in the historical event ... ... change. Events will subsequently no longer happen but attain meaning in the light of the source that the charismatic element advocates. This change in normative orientations relative to the change in other elements of the process must be reflected in the ideology. The ideology of social change may not simply be a reiffication of the old in a reactionary form. The substance of the ideology, in being a response to the divergence caused by the economy and polity, must be such as to transcend that which came before it. This final condition, specifying the relations between elements necessary for revolutionary change, may only be derived in a society which is neither an organic, composite whole nor one of random atomistic ends. Rather, the society must be one where the normative orientation for mediating between conditions and means is one of consensus.