Marxism Flashcards
Merton and Nightingale - desire for success outweighing risk of punishment
Merton and Nightingale have pointed out that for some the desire to achieve the success goals of society outweigh the pressure to obey the law, advertising only adds to this strain between the legitimate means and the goal of material success.
Rofkopf - ‘superclass’
Rothkopf notes the ‘superclass’, mainly the people who run global corporations, and at the very bottom we have the lower class (in the developed world) and the slum dwellers, the street children and the refugees in the developing world.
Bauman - the super wealthy
Bauman points out that the super wealthy effectively segregate themselves from the wealthy, through living in exclusive gated communities and travelling in private jets and armoured vehicles with security entourages. If people can afford it, they move to a better area, and send their children to private schools. However, this doesn’t prevent the poor and the rich from living side by side.
Chambliss - crime as a rational response
Chambliss even goes so far as to say that economic crime ‘’represents rational responses to the competitiveness and inequality of life in capitalist societies”.
> Link to Merton’s strain theory - drugs dealers see themselves as innovative entrepreneurs.
Parry - lower crime rate in egalitarian societies
Parry visited the extremely egalitarian Island of Anuta and found that there was an extremely lowered crime rate in these egalitarian societies.
Snider - capitalist states and health and safety
Snider (1993) argues that capitalist states are reluctant to pass laws which regulate large capitalist concerns and which might threaten profitability.
Having tried so hard to attract investment the last thing the state wants to do is alienate the large corporations. The state is thus reluctant to pass – or enforce – laws against such things as pollution, worker health and safety and monopolies.
While the lack of regulation in these areas is obvious in the third world, in most of Europe, there are many laws protection the environment and health and safety, but fines for them are relatively low.
Until 2007, no individual member of a corporation could be prosecuted for damaging the environment or endangering worker safety through corporate practise.
Hall - ‘black muggers’ study
Stuart Hall (1978) applied the critical criminology approach to black muggers in the 1970’s UK. His arguments will also be considered when we explore the social distribution of crime by ethnicity and the media and crime; but some key findings were:
> There was what Marxists call a “crisis of capitalism” (an economic recession).
> The resulting unemployment had a disproportionate impact on black people, some of whom chose to enter the informal economy (aspects of which involved crime) rather than do “white man’s shit work”.
> The ruling class sought to divide the working class to prevent anti-capitalist political activism: turning white workers against black workers was one approach to this.
> A moral panic about street crime by black people was fostered, leading to a crackdown by the police and a crime wave fantasy (see the media and crime).
> This was one means by which revolution or radical political change was prevented.
Gordon - policing the working-class
David Gordon argues that the police mainly focus on policing working class (and underclass) areas and the justice system mainly focuses on prosecuting working and underclass criminals. The system ignores the crimes of the elite and the middle classes, although both of these classes are just as likely to commit crime as the working classes.
Gordon argues that the disproportionate prosecution of working class criminals ultimately serves to maintain ruling-class power and to reinforce ruling class ideology (thus performing ‘ideological functions’ for the ruling class.)
Gordon - benefits of selective law enforcement
According to Gordon ‘selective law enforcement’ benefits the capitalist system in three major ways:
1) By punishing individuals and making them responsible for their actions, defining these individuals as ‘social failures’ we ignore the failings of the system that lead to the conditions of inequality and poverty that create the conditions which lead to crime.
2) The imprisonment of selected members of the lower classes neutralises opposition to the system.
3) The imprisonment of many members of the underclass also sweeps out of sight the ‘worst jetsam of Capitalist society’ such that we cannot see it.
We may also add a fourth benefit, that all of the police, court and media focus on working class street crime means that our attention is diverted away from the immorality and greed of the elite classes.
