Social Presets in America

History, it is said, reveals itself in a cyclical process, which has a tendency towards repetition. If this is true, by studying the past we determine what was attempted in production, transportation, education, economics, religion, law and everything that is important to the human species. By taking a backwards glance into matters of importance, we can refrain from making similar mistakes as that of our ancestors and form new ideas and strategies for dealing with those ideas that failed or were never tried in history. Connecting the dots of yesteryear can, however, prove difficult at best and only when we take events out of their original context and analyze them can we really get a true look at the big picture. It seems that throughout history there is one outstanding characteristic that societies have shared.

Marx wrote about this and suggested the only constant that is guaranteed in life is the one that never remains the same. This constant is change. Marx also believed that each society is built upon the material foundations of its process of production and that the members of society are born into a predetermined social structure that is entirely defined by the mode of production (science and technology). The social classes, then, are the divisions of labor and the interaction, which served to create conflict as one class, strives to break from the control of the higher class. To Marx, conflict was the single means by which the social structure would change and he advocated thoughts of revolution in which the lower classes challenged the controlling element and the rules and regulations in which they lived. The materialistic foundations that bound society or the social classes were he believed, “preserved by specific presets that only make themselves known” when it becomes necessary to preserve their own position in the social structure. He believed that those who owned the process of production at any given time in history are the controlling class and those who produce the labor are the working class and subject to the will of the controlling element not only in the process but in society as a whole (Capitalist).

An example of just such a present that Marx was describing can be found in the 1990s when new information technologies began to emerge and reshape the work environment from the corporate structure of nine-to-five to the new home office. The home office made possible by the technological advances in the communication industry. It even became legal and popular to take deductions for the equipment and expenses associated with maintaining the home office; so long as it did derive an income and was not reimbursed from the employers or if the home office was a sole proprietor business classification. Despite the legality of the business and deductions being taken in respect to the new home office, there was one certain agency, which sought to halt the concept and prevent further migration from the corporate environment by workers. This happening occurring in the United States and North American continent only. Marx, had stated, social classes are governed by rules and regulations that make themselves known when challenged by a lower class. In this particular instance, the preset or qualitative forces that preserved the normal mode of production was the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States federal government. In addition to challenging the deduction, the IRS forced those returns to endure the horrors of an audit procedure. This served to discourage others in the work force from attempting similar migration and / or deductions and the momentum of the home office revolution was halted. Thereby preserving corporate structure of the office environment and the work world. This is also an example of what Weber defined as bureaucracy. According to Weber, authority arises not from persons but from positions. This authority is legitimated by organizational rules and regulations in a hierarchy of work relations.