Germinal (the movie): Which groups in the movie portray the three economic-political systems; Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism.

Essay by 011235813High School, 11th gradeA+, February 2007

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Throughout history there have been many changes that we've incorporated into our daily lives that, and if those events and changes did not occur as they did, we would not know life as it is today. Changes ranging from political ideologies and economic reform to equality rights and fair social justice are only a small portion of the economic, political freedoms and human rights that people fought for in the past for us to enjoy today. In the movie version of the novel; Germinal, author ÃÂmile Zola presents to us the struggle experienced by French miners in the 19th century. In the movie three distinct groups of people have chosen to live by three extremely different political ideologies and Zola portrays where these ideologies get each group of people and why they chose the ideologies. The three prominent economic - political ideologies in the movie are Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism.

Communism is portrayed by a quiet yet clever and eccentric character called Souvarine. Having Karl Marx as a partner, they created the first Workingman's Association - an illegal union to be run by French coalmine workers in order to gain support with numbers and put forth their demands to mine owners. Souvarine introduced the idea of violent revolution and terrorist acts of assassination and destruction against the government to join groups of people together and create a communist society. Hearing this, Karl Marx immediately disagreed and withdrew from the Workingman's Association which collapsed thereafter. Marx rejected secret conspiratorial activities because he believed that only open movements would join people together for a cause, for a true communist revolution. Communism demands total equality and economical distribution amongst the population to create a classless society which is totally controlled by the government and provides social assistance to the total population where everyone...