Marx, Karl Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Karl Marx (1818–83) was a German philosopher and social activist. Along with Friedrich Engels (1820–95) he helped create the conflict school of criminology. Often when examining the conflict school of criminology the name “Marx” appears with no mention of his lifelong colleague and friend Engels. This is unfortunate because from 1842 when they met until Marx’s death in 1883 their writing constituted some of the most provocative prose of the 19th century. Although Engels claimed that during Marx’s life “he played second fiddle” it is often difficult to ascertain exactly which of these two scholars contributed more to the analysis of any particular issue.

Unfortunately for criminologists, neither Marx nor Engels examined crime except as an aside in their analysis of capitalism; it was left to later writers to develop a coherent approach to the study of this phenomenon utilizing their arguments. Engels, however, does offer some thoughts on crime when in 1844 he described the breeding grounds of crime, the slums of London, as having “streets generally unpaved, rough … filled with vegetable and animal refuse without gutters … doors altogether wanting, … [because] there [is] nothing to steal.” These deplorable conditions left the English laboring classes with only two avenues of escape, “sexual indulgences and drunkenness and [they] are constantly spurred on to the maddest excess in these two enjoyments.” Engels describes the actions of capitalists who systematically violated the law to maximize profits with no official sanctions. He noted that actions such as placing workers in inhumane working conditions that were likely to result in their death or dismemberment in the name of profits, were not met with the same type of condemnation as a simple robbery. Marx continued to condemn the dehumanizing conditions of the laboring classes in volume 1 of Capital.

One of the earliest formal proponents of a form of Marxist criminology was the Dutch scholar Willem Bonger (1876–1940), who published Criminality and Economic Conditions in 1910. Bonger argued that one of the main causes of crime was poverty. However, neither Bonger nor Marx nor Engels were pure economic determinists as so many critics of their line of argument imply. Bonger, for example, argued that crime was the result of two related factors: (1) individuals steal simply due to need, and (2) poverty kills the social sentiments of humans. Although, as Bonger argued, economic deprivation was inextricably related to crime, capitalism destroyed the social sentiment of all classes, with the working class most adversely affected, and this was the true culprit in the onset of criminality. Crime existed in precapitalist societies but capitalism created the conditions for its exponential growth. The spirit of capitalism with which humans could be likened to objects to be manipulated or exploited, along with economic distress, created the conditions in which crime flourished.

Marx’s condemnation of this spirit of capitalism first appears in 1844 with his discussion of alienation in an advanced capitalist economy. The first form of alienation was that the working classes viewed the product of their labor as being objects that dominated them. That is, the product existed not for their use and enjoyment but belonged to the bourgeoisie who could dispose of it as they saw fit. Second, the proletariat was alienated from the process that produced the product. The laborers have no control over the process that produced the product nor do they own the instruments used in production. One example of this form of alienation was the assembly line with its mind-destroying repetition. Third, Marx argued that in a capitalist state the workers view themselves as not being part of the natural order of life but as being separated from it and alone. These three forms of alienation

resulted in the workers viewing others not as allies but as rivals, who could be used and exploited as they themselves were. Crime, therefore, whether it was violent or property offenses, was the natural culmination of this process of alienation. In capitalism, in which individuals were stripped of their dignity and treated as nothing more than objects to be exploited, any and all forms of behavior that resulted in economic rewards could be justified. Crime, therefore, is just one manifestation of the alienated human condition.

Society and Crime

Marx and Engel’s approach to the study of society in general and crime in particular cannot be fully appreciated without an analysis of their notion of class, class conflict, and social evolution. According to Marx and Engels, all societies were composed of two dominant classes who were in conflict with each other over the distribution and control of social wealth. Class was determined by an individual’s or a group’s relationship to the means of production, that is, the dominant techniques utilized to produce products in that society. In feudalism the means of production were agricultural, thus, the lords who owned the farms were the dominant group who strove to maximize their share of societal wealth and controlled the power of the state, as opposed to the serfs, who worked on the manors and controlled little but their ability to labor.

In the capitalist state that Marx and Engels were discussing, industrial production was the primary method of producing wealth; those who owned the factories controlled the power of the state, they were the dominant class, the bourgeoisie. Those who owned little but their labor power and had no political power were the subordinate class, the proletariat. The rules and regulation of the society, the law, protected the interests of the dominant class. History, according to Marx and Engels, is an unfolding story of class conflict. Social evolution or social change occurs when the conflict between the two classes reaches such a point that a new form of society emerges. For example, the conflict between lord and serf that characterizes feudalism was resolved by the emergence of a new form of society, capitalism. However, this new economic system contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The quest for profits and control created conditions in the new society for the subordinate class that were more oppressive than the one that preceded it. This new class conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat can only be resolved with the development of a new economic system, socialism. In this new economic system conflict will cease because the means of production will no longer be privately owned, ushering in the perfect state, one devoid of economic deprivation and alienation, and so free of crime.

Marx and Engels argued that class and class conflict are normal in presocialist societies. Unlike the functionalism of Émile Durkheim, where all social institutions collaborate to maintain the homeostasis of that society and where law and morality represent the shared values of the collectivity, in the conflict model society is held together by force. Functionalist theorists argued that law represents the collective will; conflict theorists argued that law is class rule. Conflict theorists argue that in a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie control the economy and so make the laws that protect their interest. Social control is maintained by the bourgeoisie controlling the apparatus of the state that disseminates that ideology, creating a “false consciousness” among the working classes. In the United States, for example, they control the press and educational institutions that spread their message, the American Dream, that can be achieved by all. Those who fail, the poor, are responsible for their own failure. The American Dream is a realistic hope for all regardless of present circumstances. However, if this type of control fails to achieve the desired result, that is social stability, then the actors of the criminal justice system intervene to protect the status quo. According to the dominant ideology, the criminal justice system works equally for all, it is colorblind, and those who enter into it as suspects are there because they have earned the right to be there by committing serious law violations.

Marx and Engels’s approach to the study of crime has had a rocky history in the United States. Late 19thand early 20th-century American criminologists such as John Gillin, and E. A. Ross among others were aware of the contributions that Marx, Engels, and Bonger made to the understanding of crime. However, as a result of hysteria associated with the rise of the Soviet Union, their writings were overlooked in the United States. Conflict criminology did not seem to offer to most American criminologists the insights that they needed. Functionalism dominated American criminology until the 1960s. Functionalism may help explain periods of stability but it offered little insight when challenges to stability arose. Conflict criminology offered options that functionalism did not.

Bibliography:

Bonger, Willem. Criminality and Economic Conditions. Austin Turk, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969.
Burger, William. American Crime and Punishment: The Religious Origins of American Criminology. Buchanan, MI: Vande Vere Publishing, 1993.
Greenberg, David, ed. Crime and Capitalism: Readings in Marxist Crimonology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010.
Marx, Karl. Capital. Fredrich Engels, ed. New York: Modern Library, 1906.
Marx, Karl. Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society. Lloyd Easton and Kurt Guddat, eds. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
Sims, Barbara A. “Crime, Punishment, and the American Dream: Toward a Marxist Integration.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, v.34/1 (1997).
Wall, Edmund. “Marx, Law, and Coercion.” Journal of Social Philosophy, v.32/1 (2001).

This example Marx, Karl Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.