A Brief Biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 1008 Words

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, was born in 1882 and attended both Harvard University and Columbia Law School (White House). Serving from March 1933-April 1945, FDR became America’s longest serving president (Miller Center). He entered office in the midst of the Great Depression, America’s major financial crisis. Everyone was investing in the stock market, and when it crashed, America came close to bankruptcy. The crash of the stock market left people without money, jobs, homes, food, and hope. The previous president, Herbert Hoover, made quite a mess out of the Depression. Hoover simply ignored the fact that the country was in depression because he did not know how to deal with it. Hoover left FDR with a big†¦show more content†¦Finally, what made FDR such an effective leader was his â€Å"New Deal†. The â€Å"New Deal† was a series of economic and social reforms that he made to help the country out of depression. Not only did these reforms help the current issues with the Depression but they also helped make America a more stable nation for the future. Within only a few weeks of FDR taking office did the nation start seeing great change happen. In this short period of time he stabilized the banks by shutting them down. He didn’t open back up the banks unless he felt they were stable; this was known as the FDIC. He also set a budget for government spending which helped him achieve his policies. FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps â€Å"CCC†. The CCC provided work for 2.5 million unmarried men while also conserving the environment (Time). Another notable reform made by FDR was the National Industrial Recovery Act; also know as the NIRA. This set a minimum wage and helped the industrial workers and businesses (the industrial business was declining at the time) (Time). One of the biggest parts of the NRA was the Public Works Association â€Å"PWA†. The PWA put many to work and accomplished hug e projects. The Works Progress Association, WPA, this brought work to 8 million Americans and decreased the unemployment rate (Time). Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1933 (Time). It continuesShow MoreRelatedA Brief Biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt1110 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the best and most influential presidents in U.S. history. Successfully guiding the stricken nation through the Great Depression and World War II, FDR also forever changed the office of the President of the United States and the future course of American politics† (Coker). â€Å"Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, into a wealthy family. The Roosevelt’s had been prominent for several generations, having made their fortune in real estate and tradeRead MoreRedifining Presidency: Franklin Delano Roosevelt1270 Words   |  6 PagesNapoleon, Agnes Macphail, Gandhi,etc. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, is the only president in American history to be elected four consecutive times. No other president in history led America through some of its greatest domestic, complex and potentially lethal crisis’s, including the Second World War. He redefined each crisis as a chance of opportunity and strived for change of the American people. The measures president Roosevelt took laid a foundation for economicRead MoreThe Studio System Essay14396 Words   |  58 Pagesstable notable and for its writers, such as Cecil DeMille and Billy Wilder * RKO had Fred and Ginger, as well as providing a home for Orson Welles * 20th Century Fox was associated mostly with musicals and biographies * Universal was the home of horror movies * Warners were the most grittily realistic, with gangster pictures and westerns dominating their output The star system [IMAGE] The studios understood what theyRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesrequired—interaction between the colonial rulers and the local, colonized people in offices, shops, industries, and schools, although not as much in recreation. The results of this interaction were unpredictable. In addition to the social science literature, biographies, autobiographies, fiction, drama, and films are filled with the stories of indigenous people and colonial rulers who were transformed in one way or another through their interactions with the diverse residents and the institutions of the European

Gay Marriage Should Remain Legal in California - 998 Words

â€Å"Demographic information gleaned from the registered licenses also shows the newlywed same-sex couples were older and better educated than the average American household. More than 74 percent were over age 35, while 69 percent had at least one college degree† (Murphy). Although marriage between same-sex marriages interferes with the traditional purpose of marriage, procreation; gay marriage should remain legal in California because it justifies equality by allowing them to be socially accepted in society, it creates equality economically for taxes and finances, and reiterates that religious beliefs in all faiths should not dictate society. The traditional purpose of a marriage is procreation. Many people fear that same-sex marriages will†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In May 2008, Californias Supreme Court struck down the states ban on same-sex marriage, ruling that the states constitution gives this basic civil right to (marry to) all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples†. (Hamasaki) Not only should gay marriage remain legal in California because it is equality is a constitutional but also because creates equality economically for taxes and finances. In August 2013, the Treasury Department ruled that same-sex couples that are legally married will be treated as a married couple for federal tax purposes. â€Å"It affects how they will be treated in terms of federal income taxes, federal estate and gift taxes, the tax breaks they get for employer-sponsored health insurance and other benefits† (The decision). Every American should have equality for the sake of tax purposes no matter what their sexual preference is. â€Å"Todays ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a statement It provides access to benefits, responsibilities and protections under federal tax law that all Americans deserve.† (The decision). With benefits comes responsibili ties and gay couples must endure those as well. Finally, California should maintain the legal right for same-sex couples to get married because reiterates that religious beliefs inShow MoreRelatedGay Marriage And The Civil Rights Of All American People1162 Words   |  5 Pageshave began to embrace the civil rights of all American people and allowing both hetero- and homo-sexual couples to marry, some states have done quite the opposite and banned same sex marriages and unions. 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Why should these people who are willing to be together for better or

Report On Performance Management At Heinz Australia Solution

Question: Describe about the Report on Performance Management at Heinz Australia. Answer: Introduction: In this report I would like to outline the main agendas and recommendations for Heinz Australia that they can use and implement. I will critically analyze the prevailing situation of the company using HRM theories and also outlining the HR framework and strategic management. We will also analyze how an effective performance management can be utilized as in the favor of an organization. For several decades Performance Management has been utilized as a prime tool to improve efficiency of an organization. The main purpose to implement Performance Management is to align the organizational goal with the annually designed objectives of individual employees. This is done to achieve the organizational objectives as well as everyone is aware of the fact that what they are suppose to do and what company is expecting form them. Moreover employees also get rewarded for good performance (Boswell, 2000). Performance management has been implemented by the organization n accordance to their needs and requirements but it has never been implemented twice in the same way. But abstraction of Performance management about its exact nature and meaning had a thankless preoccupation among HR experts. Performance Management has a variety of utilization which is a positive sign as well. An organization is most likely to fail if its business goal, culture, structure and processes differ from Performance Management goals. It is important that performance Management becomes a natural part of an organization so that it is not remained as just a paper work and a bureaucratic system. It is usually avoided by the employees as it is seen as an interruption in their real work or routine. In a general understanding the line managers should own Performance management system as a mainstream tool which forms the management system to motivate and monitor their team to be more efficient. But yet sometimes Performance Management is seen as HR-led process which tends to be time consuming and energy for little recognizable perks (Torrington, 2011). Moreover, if Performance management is utilized to give individual performance pay, then it increases the tension and worries. Also they might feel resentment and feel discriminated compared to the monetary benefits offered. This is higher at the times of austerity and low inflation. Performance management has its both positive and negative effects. If not managed properly can result in HR-administered, binary also annual verdict on very employee. But if managed properly can prove to be very helpful in improving employee performance and develop a cooperative environment and cultivate an erg for development among the employees as we ll as the management. There can be multiple agendas and purpose to have an effective performance management (Boswell, 2000). The purpose and characteristics needs to be clear for the articulation of the management literature. Though, it is easier to say it than doing it because it varies in so many ways. A simple figure of Performance Management cycle is explained in Figure 1 below. Figure1: Basic Performance Management Cycle (ref: The work foundation, 2014) According to Aguinis, Despite its importance, performance management is not living up to its promise in most organizations. A major reason for this is that most performance management systems focus almost exclusively on performance appraisal (Aguinis, 2011). There are various approach to performance Management has significantly reflected an important suggestion that Performance Management targets to go beyond the annual appraisal interviews that is there in the direct report of the managers. As specified above Performance Management is ideally successful if and only if organizational goals are synchronized with the individual objectives of the employees. Background of Heinz: The H. J. Heinz Company or Heinz is an American brand popular food processing company. They have their headquarters in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (Heinz, 2016). It was founded in 1869 by Henry John Heinz. Heinz has been holding the 50% market share for Ketchup in US market. Heinz holds 150 No. 1 or No. 2 brands all over the world (cnbc, 2016). The Heinz group agreed on being purchased by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G capital for $23 billion (cnbc, 2016). Moreover, in 2015 an official announcement was made that Kraft will be merging with Heinz; it was all set up by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G capital. They completed the merger by July2, 2015 and this gave it another edge made it a market leader. Heinz Australia has its head quarters located in Melbourne. The most popular products of Heinz in Australia are: Canned beans in tomato Sauce, canned soup, condensed soup and ready to eat soup. Some of the products like ready to eat microwave bowl soups are not produced in Australia, in fact they are imported. How was Heinzs approach to performance management invalid in relation to Morettis job? Explain your answer in relation to significance of strategic performance management, appraisal and employee feedback in organizational context. Response: Performance management includes the evaluation of the company as a whole. It analyses the performance of the company in relation to the organizational goals and set objective. Most importantly the performance management a process in which the performance of an individual is continuously evaluated, identified and set measure is taken in order to align the performance of the employee with the organizational goals (Aguinis, 2010). Performance appraisal is sometimes mistaken as performance Management but performance appraisal is just a part of performance Management. If the overall performance Management or the annual review of the company is not satisfying then it doesnt mean that the performance of the individual employee is low. It is the percentage or the measure of the whole organization. This cant be an individual review. The performance Management includes following steps (Mabey, 1999): Objectives are set. Performance is measured Performance feedback On the bases of the performance outcome rewards are given/ or training if otherwise Amendments to the activities and objective. As per the situation in which Moretti a sales manager at Heinz Australia was dismiss on the bases on the performance management review (or the annual review). it was an invalid approach opted by the company because they were asking him to sign a personal performance management plan. Firstly the approach was invalid because this was not an individual performance review. Therefore the managements approach of asking him to sign such plan was not based on the performance only. Secondly, the management should have followed the proper methodology to make him understand that why they are asking him to sign such plan. The approach they should have opted would be that they should have given him his personal appraisal stating the exact need of such plan. Though, Moretti on regular bases asked the management to give him the details of the performance concern which the management didnt provide. This infused the fear of job insecurity in him (moretti) and he refused to sign any such plan. Now, what management should have opted for a performance management approach such as Goal-setting theory proposed by Edwin Locke. According to this theory, an individual set certain personal goal which play an important role in motivation them, if these goal are aligned with the organizational goals, then the maximum performance can be achieved. If goals are not achieved then they either opt for improving their performance or modifying their goals to make them more realistic and achievable. Thus, opting for this theory results in the achievement of the goals set by the performance management system (Salaman, 2005). Another approach could have been used by the management rather than forcing him (Moretti) to sign certain personal performance managed plan is Expectancy theory. This theory suggests that an individual is anticipated by the value of the goal set by them in the organization. This results in either improved performance if the goals are achieved or the modification of the employees behavior in order to achieve their set goals (Salaman, 2005). Thus if the Management in Heinz Australia could have implemented this approach, they might have avoid the employee dissatisfaction and the humiliation Moretti faced. Also they might have not face the legal battle they had with him. How was Heinzs approach towards employee performance management unreliable? Discuss your answer that relates employee performance management and its impact on strategic human resource management and organizational performances. Response: Performance management system needs to be fair for both employee and the employer. The purpose of the performance management system or the strategic performance management is to align the organizational goal with the individual goals to attain the management goals (Bevan, 1991). Now an effective performance management can prove to be beneficial for both the organization as well as the employees working in the organization. But the performance management system should be design in such a way that it creates a win-win situation for both the organization as well as employee. An effective performance Management can maximize the employees satisfaction level as their individual goals are aligned with the organizational goal. Also it helps in utilization As per Heinz employee performance management was unreliable in various ways. A performance management on a basic level is designed to achieve and analyze the performance of the company or an organization in alignment with the individual objectives. Now Moretti was asked to sign a personal performance management plan because his annual performance management review was low. But the management used it as a reason and portrayed it as his individual performance. It is very clear that a performance management system is the review of the organization as whole not an individual review. This gave Moretti a sense of insecurity and he expressed that management is using this to cut it off from the organization. The management certainly could have taken other actions as well. They could have opted for a personal performance appraisal without asking him to sign any document. They could have given him his personal appraisals and point out the areas where he was lacking. Moreover, before terminating him the ideal approach would have been to assess that if he needs some kind of training to help him improve his performance and achieve the goal set for him. But what the management at Heinz Australia did was asked him to sign up for a personal performance managed plan without telling him where he is lacking. Heinz being such a reputed company needs to have more refined and efficient performance management system aligned with its strategic management goal to achieve maximum profitability (Bevan, 1991). It will definitely reduce the financial cost as well. The problems arise from the mobility of the performance management system. If we listen to the views of Moretti, he asked the management to provide him the performance concern documents by the management. Which was not done and also this type of performance management strategy had never been implemented in past for any employee so this was definitely something which cant be accepted. Also it gave him an idea that management is doing all this to let him go from the company without giving any valid reason. It is not a ideal practice of performance management to assess an employee. An organization if acts like this spreads a sense of insecurity among the other employees as well. This could result in lack of employee retention. This definitely affects other employees as well and ultimately this would result in the lowered profitability of the organization. the management should always keep in mind the ultimate goal of every individual in an organization is to achieve the organizational goal as well as their personal growth. The management must not void Performance management theories for personal interest and grudges. Therefore, the performance management of Heinz was unreliable indeed. Identify the ways in which Heinzs employee performance management could be improved. As part of your answer, make sure you explain carefully how the company should implement your recommendations because so much of success in this area depends on the how of any strategy is implemented. Response: Every organization needs to have an effective Performance management system. This helps the organization to achieve its goals and perform well. But if is very important for an organization to achieve employee satisfaction (Hirsh, 2008). If the employees of an organization are not satisfied with the company or the management this would definitely affects the performance of the organization. As far as Heinz Australia is concern according to the case study we found that the management didnt pay much attention to the problem faced but the employee, in fact they used it to assess his personal performance on the bases of his annual review which was not personal appraisal but an appraisal of the company as whole (Torrington, 2011). This is not how ideally management handles such situation here are some suggestions for the company that they might have implemented to handle this situation: The management should have implemented a strategy of aligning organizational goals with the individual objectives. There should be a mutual agreement between the employer and the employee and they should be clear that what are the individual objects that an employee has work accordingly. An organization should provide an opportunity to the employee to identify their objectives and goals. Also develop their skills and competency for the optimum personal as well organizational growth. The performance management should implement an effective cycle in which the performance should be planned, goals should be set, and along with that support should be provided to the employee so that they could achieve what has been set out for them. And as proper review of the performance should be given to them so that they could improve the skill and become competent (Hirsh, 2008). It should be cleared to the employee that what is expected out of them and how they should perform. Motivating an employee play a vital role in improving their performance. A regular feedback should be provided to them, so that they can improve where they are lacking. Performance management system is continues process including series of discrete events and activities. It is an ongoing process which is required to improve the performance of the employee to maximize the organizational profitability (Bevan, 1991). In performance management the line manager is the key enabler. The manager should adopt a diverse supporting and facilitating roles to back up the employees. A manger should be able to locate the barrier and remove them that are becoming a hindrance in the achievement of the set goals. I couldnt emphasize more on the feedback. As continues feedback can reduce the time wastage as well as monetary factors. Performance management needs to be unbiased as well. If the personal grudges are kept in mind them this ultimately hinders the organizational goals. It is not possible to have an effective performance management if it is considered as just a system. It needs to be an integrated part of the management. So that it is effective enough of improve the performance of the employee and profit maximization. If the complex approaches to performance management can be very risky for an organization. It needs to be simplified. The simpler the approach better are the results. The object of the performance Management should define what of an objective rather than how. It is easier to explain what is expected from the employee and help can be provided to understand how of an objective (Hirsh, 2008). The management should follow the moral of encouraging people to take responsibility. They should reward the excellent performer and motivate the best. Also encourage the underperformer in a positive way so that they can also perform better. Encouragement can help in improving the performance of the employee. Positive motivation is very important and effective in improving the performance of an employee. The objects that are set for the employees should be revised regularly to remove the barriers and make it more achievable (Bevan, 1991). These recommendations can help the management to improve their Performance management system and can result in optimum utilization of resources be it human or others. Conclusion : To conclude it is correct to say that Heinzs performance management system lacks authenticity as well as it was more of a system rather than an integrated part of the management system. It is important for an organization to implement performance management system efficiently otherwise it can hamper their reputation, increase employee dissatisfaction and it would be difficult for them to retain their employees. If the performance management is aligned with the strategic management it can result in the achievement of the organizational goals along with the optimum utilization of the resources available. It helps in cutting cost and lesser wastage of time. It the employee knows that what is expected out of him/ her, then it becomes easier for them to perform as per expectations For Moretti, the way management handle his situation was not justified at any point. They should have opt for the right way of conducting a performance appraisal where he could be pin pointed that what his weakness are and how he could improve. Apparently, this was not the approach of the management, in fact they judged him on the bases of the annual review and forced him to sign up for a personal management plan, which was an incorrect way of handling the situation. Moreover when he resented the process they ultimately dismissed him from the company. Therefore, it is important for any organization to implement an effective performance management system so the ultimate goal of an organization can be achieved and the employees the organization grows along with the organizational growth. References: Aguinis, H. 2009 2nd edition performance management Armstrong K and Ward A, 2005 What makes for effective performance management London: The Work Foundation. Armstrong, M. and Baron, A 2004, Managing Performance: Performance management in action. Bevan S and Thompson M, Performance Management at the Crossroads, 1991. Personnel Management, pp 36-40. Bevan S, Performance improvement plans and the culture of fear, HR Magazine. [Online]. https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/hr/features/1143322/performance-improvement-plans-culture-fear [Assessed on 2016] Berkshire Hathaway, 3G Buying Heinz for $23 million 2012 [online] available from www.cnbc.com assessed on 2016 Corporate Leadership Council, 2002:Building the High-Performance Workforce A Quantitative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Performance Management Strategies. DeNisi A and Smith C, 2014. Performance Appraisal, Performance Management, and Firm-Level Performance: A Review, a Proposed Model, and New Directions for Future Research, Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 8, No. 1, 127179. Hirsh W, Carter A, Gifford J, Strebler M, Baldwin S, 2008. What Customers Want From HR: The views of line managers, senior managers and employees on HR services and the HR function Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies, IES Report 453,. Newbold, C. (2008) 360-degree appraisals are now a classic, Human Resource Management International Digest, 16: 38-40 Newton, T. and Findlay, P. (1996) Playing God: the performance of appraisal, Human Resource Management Journal, 6.1: 42-58 O'Donoghue, T. and Punch, K. (2003) Qualitative Educational Research in Action: Doing and Reflecting, London: Routledge Olsen, W K. (2004) Triangulation in Social Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Can Really Be Mixed, in Holborn, M., and Haralambos (eds.) Developments in Sociology, Ormskirk: Causeway Press Salaman, G: Stroney, J: Billsberry, H. 2nd edition, 2005 Strategic Human resource Management: Theory and Practice sage Publication Ltd. Smart, B. (1999) Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People, Paramus, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Smith, I. (1992) Reward management and HRM, in P. Blyton and P. Turnbull (eds.) Re-assessing Human Resource Management, London: Sage Stewart, P., Murphy, K., Danford, A., Richardson, T., Richardson, M. and Wass, V. (2010) We Sell Our Time No More: Workers Struggles against Lean Production in the British Car Industry, London: Pluto Press Storey, J. (1992) Developments in the Management of Human Resources, Oxford: Blackwell Torrington, D., Hall., L. and Taylor, S. and Atkinson, C. (2011) Employee Performance Management in Human Resource Management (8th edition), London: Prentice Hall, pp.263-286 Torrington, D., Hall., L. and Taylor, S. (2002) Managing Individual Performance in Human Resource Management, London: Prentice Hall, pp.297-315 Townley, B. (1994) Performance appraisal and the emergence of management, Journal of Management Studies, 36: 287-306

Theories of international relations Essay Example

Theories of international relations Essay A structural query in the social sciences and associated areas as we know it today has deep roots in the history of Western thought. To find out the fundamental, constitutive, structures into which the sensory data of human observation and experience fall: this was a fundamental objective of the ancient Greeks, to go back no far in time (S. Sambursky, 1956). The Greek root of word idea refers to pattern, relationship, or constitution. When we speak of Platos doctrine of Ideas, we might better speak of his principle of Forms, for this is specifically what they were. Granted that these were ideal, even heavenly units in Platos philosophy, it relics true, as Cornford has stressed, that Plato was also a cosmologist, keenly interested in the nature of the actual, experiential world, social as well as physical.   In Platos cosmology there is a thoughtful sense of reality as comprised by not discrete data but shapes and forms mathematical in character (F. M. Cornford, 1952). Nor where Platos student and absconder Aristotle has any less interested in structures. As all interpreters of Aristotle have stressed, it is the living being, and with it growth, that dominates Aristotles mind as the basic model of structure. Organismic structure is, indeed, one of the oldest and most determined models to be found in Western philosophy and science. From Aristotles day to our own, with barely any lapses, the philosophy of an organism has been a significant one: sometimes with stress on the more static aspects, as in anatomy, but other times on the dynamic elements which are found to be constitutive, as in physiological processes, with growth. We will write a custom essay sample on Theories of international relations specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Theories of international relations specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Theories of international relations specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Structuralism can be inert in character, or it can be hereditary and dynamic. Contending purely organism model of structure have been as a minimum two others: the mathematical and the mechanical. Most likely the first is at least as old as the organismic. The earliest, pre-Socratic Pythagorean School of philosophy sought to reveal that reality is mathematical—that is, formed by irreducible geometrical patterns. As, the Pythagorean philosophy exercised great influence upon Plato, and much of his own cosmology contains efforts to refine the Pythagorean view of the geometric structures which form the real. The notion that reality is eventually mathematical in character is of course a very powerful one at the present time. A basic notion is interest in the relationships, the connections, within which we discover primitive elements of matter and energy. The perfunctory conception of structure, though also very old, enjoyed a renascence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the consequence in substantial degree of the influence on all thought of such physical philosophers as Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. It was nearly expected, given the great repute of these and other minds engaged in the search for laws, systems, and structures in the physical world, that the type of systems and structures they set forth in astronomy, physics, and mechanics must have excited the interests of those concerned mainly with man and society. To see society as a great machine with prototypes of equilibrium, action and reaction, and association of parts to the whole was alluring indeed, as so numerous of the ventures in social physics or social mechanics in the eighteenth century make evident. As with biology and the replica of the organism, mechanics and its model of the machine offered both statics and dynamics. Structuralism in sociology and associated disciplines has a long history insofar as its fundamental grounds are concerned. As Raymond Williams has written: We need to know this history if we are to understand the important and difficult development of structural and later structuralist as defining terms in the human sciences.( Raymond Williams, 1956). There are numerous major, and diverse, outsets of structure to be found in the social sciences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but at the extraction of all of them lie in one relation or other the biological, mathematical, and mechanical models of reality which have wield strong effect upon so many areas of knowledge over the past numerous millennia in the West. Challenges of Structuralism Through the decline of student movements by the early seventies, the slipping and incorporation and commercialization of broader counter-cultural propensities, the appearance of an international economic crisis, and the rise of Thatcherism and Reaganism, the cultural theories and the politics of the critical theory that inclined the New Left were called deeply into question. For several especially in Britain and France, Althussers theory of cultural apparatuses, joint with semiotic theories of discourse, and his overall project of a scientific, structuralist Marxism, appeared the apparent alternative to the failures of humanist Marxism, especially the Hegelian Marxism of the Frankfurt tradition. More usually, a rediscovery of the political economic practicalities of Marxism was called for in opposition to the unrealistic and romantic humanism of critical theory. The challenge of structuralism (and its commencement of social reproduction and related semiotic theories of discourse) pro ved critical for the revision and rethinking of the cultural theory of critical theory in the seventies. Of decisive significance here was a reassessment of the tasks of critical theory as a form of empirical research, as well as a rethinking of the nature of the association between culture, the state and social movements. The job of surveying the response of critical theory to structuralism and structuralist semiotics is intricate by the difficulties of differentiating the composite of tendencies symbolized by structuralism and post structuralism, as well as the arbitrariness of separating off cultural analysis from other concerns of critical theory. There is a certain difficulty in separating out the reaction of critical theory to structuralism as opposed posting structuralism; given that they share numerous assumptions and that their reception took place more or less concurrently for many of those with access to the original French texts. The main justification for such a separation, beyond the significant theoretical shifts entailed, is that the focus of structuralism theories of society is the imitation of culture, whereas the focus of poststructuralist theories is in part the impracticality, or as a minimum difficulty, of any positive, representational theory of culture in the former sense. Gidde ns provide a practical characterization of these underlying continuities. Poststructuralist authors, such as Derrida and Foucault, were reacting against aspects of structuralism thought and yet were obliged to many of its varied assumptions and arguments such as the work of de Saussure, Là ©vi-Strauss, Althusser, Lacan, and early Barthes). Though handled distinctively in structuralism and post-structuralist writing, a number of shared themes can be identified: †¦the thesis that linguistics, or more accurately, certain aspects of particular versions of linguistics, are of key importance to philosophy and social theory as a whole; an emphasis on the relational nature of totalities, connected with the thesis of the arbitrary character of the sign, together with a stress upon the primacy of signifiers over what is signified; the decentring of the subject; a peculiar concern with the nature of writing, and therefore with textual materials; and an interest in the character of a temporality as somehow constitutively involved with the nature of objects and events. There is not a single one of these themes which does not bear upon issues of importance to social theory today. Equally, however, there is not one in respect of which the views of any of the writers listed above could be said to be acceptable. (Giddens, 1987:196) The precise boundaries of the theory of culture are also notoriously difficult to define. Some focus on More narrowly an artistic notion of culture, others slip into a more generic and inclusive one. As Nelson and Grossberg note in their recent collection: †¦cultural theory is now as likely to study political categories (such as democracy), forms of political practice (such as alliances), and structures of domination (including otherness) and experience (such as subjectification) as it is to study art, history, philosophy, science, ethics, communicative codes or technology. Cultural theory is involved with reexamining the concepts of class, social identity, class struggles, and revolution; it is committed to studying questions of pleasure, space, and time; it aims to understand the fabric of social experience and everyday life, even the foundations of the production and organization of power itself. Consequently, it is all but impossible to define the terrain of cultural theory by pointing to a finite set of object-domains or to the search for a limited set of interpretive tools. (1988:6) Cultural phenomena of Structuralism Structuralism contains and combines numerous elements of a classical epistemological dichotomy between quintessence and appearance in terms of the continuum between depth and surface. Là ©vi-Strauss, who were mainly instrumental in exercising this geological metaphor, liken the configuration of cultural phenomena to their layering as in strata, and the considerate of such phenomena in terms of the excavation of these stratums and an exposure of their patterns of interrelation. Elements of a culture, are the surface manifestations or demonstrations of underlying patterns at a deeper level equally within time, the ‘synchronic’, and through time, the ‘diachronic’. What de Saussure has provided, and what stands as perhaps the most momentous and binding element of all structuralism, is that the fundamental pattern or structure of any cultural phenomenon is to be understood in terms of a linguistic allegory. The lexical terms or items of vocabulary within such a language are offered by the symbols that subsist within social life, that is, the representations that attach to or arise from the substantial state of things or materiality itself. The grammatical rules of this metaphoric language are offered by the act, the continuous and habitual act, of significance. So the diversities of ways that we make sense in different cultures variously articulates and therefore gives rise to the diverse ‘languages’ that our cultural symbols comprise. The involvedness of this system of meaning is compounded by the fundamentally arbitrary relation between any particular object and state of affairs and the symbolic (linguistic) device that is engaged to indicate its being. Thing likeness, then, as objective and recognizable within any culture, derives not from any association between names and named but from a precisely poised structuring of otherness in our restricted network of ideas. Thin gs are not so much what they are but appear from a knowledge of what they are not, indeed a system of oppositions; the principle at the core of any binary code. Now the tenderness of this structuring of otherness remains secure, certainly, it appears as vigorous through the very practice of sociality, through the perseverance and reproduction of that tenancy relation at each and every turn within a culture. Meaning, then, within a particular culture, emerges from convention overcoming the random relation between the signifier and the signified. Convention replicates culture, and culture is conditional upon reproduction within structuralism. Bourdieu is devoted to the development of a critical yet indebted theory of culture and as such his ideas provide a significant contribution to our understanding of both power and power within our society. He began from an analysis of the education system and the part that its institutions play in the formation and diffusion of what counts as legal knowledge and forms of communication: †¦the cultural field is transformed by successive restructurations rather than by radical revolutions, with certain themes being brought to the fore while others are set to one side without being completely eliminated, so that continuity of communication between intellectual generations remains possible. In all cases, however, the patterns informing the thought of a given period can be fully understood only by reference to the school system, which is alone capable of establishing them and developing them, through practice, as the habits of thought common to a whole generation. (P. Bourdieu, 1971, p. 190) It is here that he divulges elements of a Durkheimian epistemology through his interest in the supporting character of cultural representations, the production and continuation of a social consensus that is a concept parallel in significance to the idea of a Collective consciousness’, and through the supposition of the social origins and perseverance of knowledge classifications. He is, though, critical of what he sees as Durkheim’s positivism in that it depends upon a stasis, and also that Durkheim believes the functions of the education system to be expected (J. Kennett, 1973). A major contribution of Bourdieu’s thought has been his improvement of a series of influential metaphors to eloquent the subtle relation of power and dominion at work in the social world and through the stratification of culture. Most notable is that which he draws from political economy when he speaks of cultural capital: ‘†¦there is, diffused within a social space a cultural capital, transmitted by inheritance and invested in order to be cultivated.’ (P. Bourdieu, 1971, p. 192) Stratified socialization practices and the system of education function to distinguish positively supportive of those members of society who, by virtue of their location within the class system, are the ‘natural’ inheritors of cultural capital. This is no crude conspiracy theory of a cognizant manipulation, somewhat what is being explored here is the prospect of a cultural process that is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. This process is observed as carrying with it a framework of anticipation and tolerance of stratification and privilege. In this way Bourdieu moves from the ideological function of culture into a wakefulness of the weird efficacy of culture in that it is seen as structuring the system of social relations by its execution. Therefore, as Bourdieu makes clear, even within a democratic society this demonstration of disguised machinery continues to reinstate the inequalities of a social order which is pre-democratic in character and anti-democratic in essence. Structuralism in modern society The culturalist custom shares with the Marxist at least two major theoretical suppositions: first, the investigative postulate of a necessary, and quite elemental, disagreement between cultural value on the one hand, and the developmental logic of utilitarian capitalist civilization on the other; and secondly, the regulatory imperative to locate some social institution, or social grouping, adequately powerful as to protract the former against the latter. Culturalist hopes have been variously invested in the state, the church, the mythical intelligentsia and the labor movement; Marxist objectives in theory much more consistently in the working class, but in practice also in the state, as for communist Marxism, and in the intelligentsia (and very often more particularly the literary intelligentsia) for Western Marxism. Structuralism accepts neither analytical postulate nor regulatory imperative. For the former, it substitutes a dichotomy between manifestation and essence, in which esse nce is revealed only in structure; for the latter, a scientistic epistemology which characteristically denies both the need for dictatorial practice and the prospect of meaningful group action. There are numerous diverse versions of structuralism, of course, both in wide-ranging and as applied to literature and culture in particular. But, for our purposes, and very broadly, structuralism might well be distinct as an approach to the study of human culture, centered on the search for restraining patterns, or structures, which claims that individual phenomena have connotations only by virtue of their relation to other phenomenon as elements within a systematic structure. More particularly, certain kinds of structuralism those denoted very often by the terms semiology and semiotics can be recognized with the much more particular claim that the methods of structural linguistics can be effectively generalized so as to apply to all features of human culture. Structuralism secured entry into British academic life initially during the late sixties and seventies. But in France and structuralism has been a devastating Francophone affair it has a much longer history. The basic continuity between structuralism and post-structuralism is, nevertheless, not so much logical as sociological. Where Marxism desired to mobilize the working class, and culturalism at its most thriving at any rate, the intelligentsia, against the logics of capitalist industrialization, both structuralism and post-structuralism donate to a very different, and much more modest, intellect of the intellectual’s proper political function. In an observation truly directed at Sartre, but which could just as easily be intended toward Leavis, Foucault writes thus: For a long period, the†¦intellectual spoke and was acknowledged the right of speaking in the capacity of master of truth and justice†¦ To be an intellectual meant something like being the consciousness/conscience of us all some years have passed since the intellectual was called upon to play this role. A new mode of the â€Å"connection between theory and practice† has been established. Intellectuals have got used to working, not in the modality of the â€Å"universal†, the â€Å"exemplary†, the â€Å"just-and-true-for-all†, but within specific sectors, at the precise points where their own conditions of life or work situate them†¦ This is what I would call the â€Å"specific† intellectual as opposed to the â€Å"universal† intellectual (Foucault, 1978). Anti-historicism is a much more characteristic defining feature of structuralism. Both Marxism and culturalism translate their aversion to utilitarian capitalist civilization into historicity persistence that this type of civilization is only one amongst many, so as to be capable thereby to raise either the past or an ideal future against the present. By contrast, structuralism characteristically inhabits a never-ending theoretical present. The only significant exception to this observation is Durkheim, whose enduring evolutionist we have already noted. But so structuralism is his commencement both of primitive â€Å"mechanical solidarity† and of compound â€Å"organic solidarity,† that Durkheim cannot in fact account for the shift from the one to the other, accept by a badly masked resort to the demographic fact of population growth, which necessitates, on his own definition, a theoretically illicit appeal to the non-social, in this case, the biological (Durkheim, 1964 ). So structuralism is Durkheim’s basic preoccupation that this account of the dynamics of modernization becomes, effectively, theoretically incoherent, an allegation that could be leveled at neither Marx nor Weber, Eliot nor Leavis. And after Durkheim, even this residual evolutionism disappears from structuralism. Conclusion Structuralism’s anti-historicism directs it to take as given whatever present it might choose to study, in a fashion quite alien both to culturalism and to non-Althusserian Marxism. This positively makes possibly a non-adversarial posture in comparison with contemporary civilization; it does not, however, require it. A stress on structures as deeper levels of realism, inundated beneath, but nonetheless shaping, the realm of the empirically obvious, can very easily permit for a politics of de mystification, in which the structuralism analyst is understood as piercing through to some furtively hidden truth. For so long as this hidden reality is seen as somehow confusing the truth claims of the more apparent realities, then for so long can such a stance remain attuned with an adversarial intellectual politics. Even then all that eventuates is noticeably enfeebled, and fundamentally academic, versions of intellectual extremism, in which the world is not so much changed, as conside red differently. And again, while structuralism is certainly attuned with such radicalism, it does not need it. Hence the rather peculiar way in which the major French structuralism thinkers have proved capable to shift their political opinions, usually from left to right, without any corresponding amendment to their particular theoretical positions. For structuralism, as neither for culturalism nor for Marxism, the nexus between politics and theory appears irreversibly contingent. This permutation of positivism and what we might well term â€Å"synchronism† with an obligation to the demystification of experiential reality propels the whole structuralism enterprise in a fundamentally theoretic direction. A science of the stasis, marked from birth by an inveterate anti-empiricism, becomes almost inevitably preoccupied with highly abstract theoretical, or formal, models. Hence the near ubiquity of the binary resistance as a typical structuralism trope. Theoretical anti-humanism arises from fundamentally the same source: if neither change nor process nor even the finicky empirical instances are matters of real concern, then the intentions or actions of human subjects, whether individual or collective, can simply be disposed of as extraneous to the structural properties of systems. In this way, structuralism infamously â€Å"decentres† the subject.