Luc Nguyen

May 7, 2009
Media Analysis
Plight of Coal Miners
Marxist Essay

They say history often repeats itself. Throughout history, humanity has always fought

each other over issues of equality. Thus, life and the fight between the haves and the have-nots

have always been a constant struggle. “Union Chief: Mine safety still lacking,” written by James

R. Carrol, and “U.S. blames mine owner for death of coal miner,” by Steve Twedt are two

examples of the problem of inequality. Barbara Koppel’s documentary film Harlan County, USA

reveals the coal miner’s struggle to rise up against the capitalist system. Harlan County, USA and

the coal miner’s struggle for equality is evidence that only by taking matters into their own hands

could the proletariats achieve equality.

The problem with capitalism is its power to prevent equality for the masses and enforce

inequality. With a system that favors the elites, those born with more wealth and instilled with

better education, how can those less fortunate hope to climb the economic or social ladder?

How can we believe that everyone is equal when for the majority it is impossible to survive

alone? According to Ruth Sidel in “Toward a More Caring Society” how can anyone make it

alone when they had “women beside them every step of the way…to iron their shirts…cook

their meals…and soothe them at the end of a hard day?” How can men or women, find equality

in the job market and be “competitive in the field” and be the “kind of parent they hope to be”

without physical or material support? Our capitalist belief of letting the rich prosper while the

poor get poorer is neither fair nor moral and does not provide equality for the majority. So, the

only logical solution is to provide constraints or a definition of a descent means of living.

According to Mathew Rothschild in “Our Sinful Economy” to have a more just society we need

to have a “floor of decency” a “guaranteed annual income.” Yet in Harlan County, USA that is

exactly why the coal miners are on strike, petitioning, remonstrating, supplicating, and fighting

for their freedom against oppression and slavery and why some of them lost their lives. It is

because of the capitalist system, favoring the rich capitalists, those mine owners “who seem to

view penalties as just another cost of doing business” according to Carrol that the coal miners

had to exhaust every measure of their civil rights and even resort to arms to achieve equality.

The problem with capitalism is that it causes people of different classes to make unfair

compromises and favors the haves while oppressing the have-nots into an inevitable and

inescapable turmoil. Those who own businesses will naturally give their inheritance to their

offspring, while those who own nothing will eventually pass on their debts to theirs. What this

does is lead to a society ruled by class, and where class is determined by ascription, where

nobody is equal, and where the idea of equal opportunity, an idea founded by our founding

fathers does not exist. According to Jean Baker Miller in “Domination and Subordination,”

Dominants like capitalists, those superior in class, gender and wealth are determined by “what

experts call ascription – that is birth defines you.” However, such a state where people’s social

status is determined by birth, equality does not exist, and thus exists a state of endless struggle.

We can see an example of this in the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. In Alice Doesn’t

Live Here Anymore Alice struggles to make a living on her own and is clearly oppressed by the

men in her society because of her ascription. Born as a woman and with few supports, she

struggles to make an honest living and support her child at the same time and is forced into

making unwanted compromises of giving up her career as a singer and becoming a housewife.

Alice “[had] to make substantial compromises, scale down [her] ambitions” and “not be quite
the kind of parent [she] hoped [to] be” to “live productive rewarding lives” according to Ruth

Sidel in “Toward a More Caring Society.” It is because Alice is born of a lower social class, a

subordinate social class according to Miller, that she lives on the unhappy end of the social

ladder and has to make unfair compromises. In a true classless society, where necessities are

provided, one could be what they wanted to be without the need of making unwanted

compromises. However, in a capitalist state, this is not possible because providing others with

necessities is argued to diminish quality. Furthermore, why would capitalists want to share and

redistribute their wealth when the goal of capitalism is to amass as much wealth as possible?

Therefore, we can conclude that those with power, capitalists and dominants alike will naturally

do whatever is in their power to reserve their powers for themselves. Miller explains that,

“There is, for example, no notion that superiors are present primarily to help inferiors” or to

“end the inequality” but to do “the reverse” which is why to end the disparity, one must take

matters into their own hands to achieve equality. In one scene of Harlan County, USA as one

coal miner was talking to a police man, he expressed his grievance saying that “they don’t want

us to ever retire, which is why we’re on strike” and one old man in the beginning of the film

who says “if you stick to your senses, your organization, and your solidarity, you could defeat

them” is proof that only by taking action could anything be achieved, including equality.

Capitalism causes maldistribution of wealth, and according to Rothschild,

maldistribution of wealth is why “our economy is a sin.” Rothschild claims that, “We have a

plutocracy in this country” and would say that, “the greater sin is not gluttony” but “the lack of

opportunity.” The cause for such an economy is due to the idea of laissez-faire; the belief that

the economy works best without government interference to maximize the benefits of the

individual, which is the root idea of capitalism and the American Dream of making it on your
own. This dream is becoming more of a myth because it is not possible to achieve by many.

Instead, such an idea causes people to live in poverty, and make unhealthy choices since people

need supports to thrive. The idea of individualism would cause people to fall underneath the

“floor of decency” as seen in Richard Brooks film In Cold Blood. The two main characters in

the film In Cold Blood are Dick and Perry who are two ex-convicts who struggle to survive in a

capitalist country. It is because the two ex-convicts are not provided with a “floor of decency”

or a basic means of living, and oppressed by their class that they were forced to commit heinous

crimes which Rothschild would explain as an example of how maldistribution of wealth is

sinful. While Harlan County, USA does not go to the extreme of murder, the coal miner’s

perseverance through abuse, agony, and death for the sake of liberty is better than death and is

evidence that the proletariats did have to do something to achieve their demands towards

equality.

The problem with capitalism is that it is a system, set up to make men fight amongst

themselves and become a less caring society by tipping the modes of production and exchange

balance. Much like mercantilism, capitalism favors a specific group of people of wealth. Like

mercantilism which was a system used by Great Britain to oppress the colonists using tariffs

and strict regulations, capitalism is a system used to favor the wealthiest in a society. Capitalism

serves to create a plutocracy, favor the elites, and help those who are good at making money,

even better at making money. The goal of capitalism is to maximize profit, and to do that one

must maximize production and minimize cost. It establishes a “society based on commodity

production” and where a person’s social value is based on money since “money determines

value” according to Marlene Dixon “Marriage: Genesis of Women’s Rebellion” peoples values

become centered on money and not on each other. In a society in which people simply do not
care about one another, morals consequently deteriorate and chaos, murder and senseless

fighting ensues. Like In Cold Blood the murders of Dick and Perry, the Revolutionary War due

Britain’s system of mercantilism or the many deaths of the coal miners are just only three

examples of a state without morals or why Rothschild would explain why “Our Economy is a

Sin.” Capitalists just value money over the life of one petty coal miner. They simply do not care

about the life of another because there are so many lives for them to take. What harm would it

do to a capitalist if it lost one coal miner if it could simply replace that lost one with another

one? Evidently capitalists like the coal owners do not care about the other miners even though

they’re also people since they “failed to observe basic mine safety practices and violated critical

safety standards” according to Twedt resulting in a miner’s tragic lost of life. So the only

solution is to make the capitalists care, by taking away the entire labor force from the

capitalists, the bourgeoisies, the mine owners and by organizing and creating unions could the

proletariats hope to force the capitalists, the bourgeoisies to care and achieve equality.

The problem with capitalism is that men are not angels because in the Federalist #51 “if

men were angels, there would be no need for government.” Men desire power, and once

achieved, they desire to maintain it. They’ll use whatever means at their disposal to preserve

their power. Capitalists being dominants in the financial arena will “usually define one or more

acceptable roles for the subordinate” according to Miller essentially enslaving them, and have

them do their bidding. In a traditional song “Coalminers” it is said that “they” referring to the

mine owners “will slave you until you can’t work no more” and “for a dollar in the company

store for that is all they pay” which is “barely enough to get you one meal at McDonalds”

according to Rothschild which is why men need laws, rules, and regulations from a government

to uphold equality and freedom and to prevent mine owners from exploiting their laborers. It is
because capitalists do not care about who they exploit, they “abuse and hurt” and “take our very

lifeblood…our children’s lives” that taking action is a necessity since “there is no retreat but in

submission and slavery” like Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech. It is

time we wake up, and see just what the capitalist system has done to you and me. No, longer

can we expect to receive benefits, a guaranteed minimum wage, or true equal compensation for

our labor while “lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope.” It is

because men are not angels, nor will they ever be, that the true evil resides in all of us, and that

we all have desires. It is because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely and

that is why we must have a government with a truer more just conscience than our own to

govern us. We cannot rely on our superiors to automatically give us equal compensation for our

labor. So, Harlan County, USA’s thirteen month successful strike, and the coal miner’s struggle

towards equality is evidence that only by taking action into their own hands with a willingness

to sacrifice life and limb were they ever able to purchase the priceless gift of liberty.

It is because capitalism is flawed and causes people to become immoral and causes a

maldistribution of wealth that people must take action to correct such an imbalance. The coal

miner’s success in obtaining their demands through taking action is proof that only by taking

matters into their own hands could they move toward equality. Without action, nothing is

achievable, and as long as there is class, there will always be a struggle between the haves and

have-nots. Such an endless struggle is why history will always tend to repeat itself.