Week Seventeen - Why Does Capitalism Cause Crime

Question 1

Capital accumulation sustains capitalism…

Answer 1

Capital accumulation sustains capitalism. But, characteristically, it produces a population of people not required by production, which is superfluous to capital’s average requirements.

Question 2

So, what do you do with this ‘human debris’?

Answer 2

Something has to be done because:

It is a nuisance – ‘social junk’ (management)

It is threatening – ‘social dynamite’ (control)

Question 3

Alternatively…

Answer 3

“The consequences of high neighbourhood joblessness are more devastating than those of high neighbourhood poverty. A neighbourhood in which people are poor but employed is different from a neighbourhood in which people are poor and jobless. Many of today’s problems in the inner-city ghetto neighbourhoods – crime, family dissolution, welfare, low levels of social organization, and so on – are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work” (Wilson, 1996: xiii)