1. What factors seem most important in the transition from traditional to modern society? Why do they seem so crucial?
2. AND...In what ways was socialism a response to that transition? In what ways did it look toward a new transition?

Individual identity, racism, political morality economics, ecology, nationalism and globalization are the most important transition factors moving through 1500 to 1800. When it comes to traditional society to modern society, individuality is a characteristic of modern society. An individual in the middle ages was someone who was a representative of his or her group. The individual was the person who was the best example of the family or general group that was being described. (Reilly 2002)
In the …show more content…

On the one hand, morality was determined by the needs of the state, state morality and state religion replaced traditional Christian ethics of government. (Reilly 2002) On the other hand, politics divorced from Christian morality became a science. In brief, this is what happened during the course of the middle class revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteen centuries. Beginning in England in the middle seventeenth century, the European class of merchants, lawyers, professionals, and artisans, which stood midway between the aristocracy and the poor, challenged the dominance of kings and nobles. (Reilly 2002) This middle class developed a wide ranging body of political theory that was highly moral in tone and purpose. They criticized the idea of the divine right of kings as a guise of tyranny. They condemned the Machiavellian notion of the state as an organic body which set its own ends, and offered instead an image of the state as an artificial creation of people and a means to human ends. (Reilly 2002) They objected to the Machiavellian acceptance of the rule, prince, or king as interpreter of the public needs and called instead for representative government. They questioned Machiavelli’s contention that the exercise of power was always proper and outlined rules and laws which bound rule as well as ruled. And they went further than Machiavelli in distinguishing between the state, which some still thought to be the eternal sovereign, and the particular