One of our comrades said that Capitalism is not at fault, but the out-of-control corruption in society today. As I said before, Capitalism is amoral; it can be an engine for progress or a tool of repression, and oppression. That is the quintessential theme of Wealth, Women and War. The analysis of the criminal process in Capital economics is not new, and it is unique to this work. Carl Marx, Richard Quinney ,Mark Colvin, and Elliott Currie all have added significant studies showing the dark side of capitalism.
WordTechs Press released Wealth, Women and War back to me in May 2014, and I am making it available in blog form. Occupy asked that knowledge be shared, and in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street that is what I am doing.
Cliff Potts
October 8, 2014
WordTechs Press released Wealth, Women and War back to me in May 2014, and I am making it available in blog form. Occupy asked that knowledge be shared, and in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street that is what I am doing.
Cliff Potts
October 8, 2014
The Dark
Side of Capitalism
Any discussion on crime in response to free market capitalism
inevitably invokes the ideas in Marx’s conflict theory, socialism, and
communism. The discussion is often dismissed as being un-American. However,
while socialism may indeed be dead, social responsibility is not. We are simply
too intertwined in the lives of each other.
The writings of Karl Marx, and those who followed him, should
not be dismissed. Whatever the political and policy decisions are made in the
macro-environment of national law enforcement, at the sub-cultural level the corporations
need to realize that they are on the front lines of a class battle, and
protected by a law enforcement and criminal justice system.
No matter how much the corporate citizen wishes to feel
isolated from street crime, or internal fraud, the criminal justice system is
far more interested in capture and prosecution of the criminal than the protection
of a corporate citizen. The corporate citizen, and the physical plant are still
at risk. Police do not intervene until after a criminal action occurs.
It would nice to think that tougher laws and harsher
penalties are a deterrent to criminal activity. Tougher laws and harsher
punishments only encourage the criminal to become more creative or suicidal.
This was seen in the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Columbine School Shooting, the
very recent Virginia Tech Massacre, and, the most obvious case, the attacks on
the United States
on September 11, 2001. While the current administration wishes to portray 9/11
as an act of war, it is a criminal response to specific stimuli from the free
market system at the core of the U.S. economic model.
“War,” according to the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “should be understood as an actual,
intentional, and widespread armed conflict between political communities.”[1] It
becomes hard to fathom how the events of 9/11 can be classified within that
context. It was not committed by a political community; the attack was an act
of a criminal element within the Islamic community. The response by the West
has given those elements the international status of a “political community.”
From a legal standpoint, “ … War is a contest between two or more independent
nations carried on by the authority of their respective nations.”[2]
Sixteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia , but were not acting
on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government. Moreover, they were not acting on
behalf of the Afghanistan
or Iraqi governments. Thus far there has been no proof that Iran or North Korea were involved, though
both nations were mentioned by George W. Bush in his, now famous, Axis of Evil
speech delivered to ovation during the State of the Union Address on January
29, 2002.
The contest between nations was not what manifested on
September 11, 2001. What did occur is that elements within the Islamic
community took it upon themselves to act out in reprisal for policies carried
out in support of corporations on the corporate entities which Islam held
accountable, symbolically, if not literally.[3] This
is a crime, not war.
While free market capitalism offers many advantages over
socialism or communism, capitalism does have a dark underbelly which produces
crime. The crime is specific to the cognitive landscape from which the person
arises. Cognitive landscape refers to the individual’s understanding of what
options exist to respond to a specific challenge within the individual’s understanding
of the social contract, or rules of life.
Referring again to Maslow’s work on motivation, he mapped out
which needs exist at what levels for the segment of the culture from which corporate America draws their human resources.
This segment is now being made redundant in the drive toward the global market.
It is inevitable that retaliatory action will occur based on what the
individual perceives as an acceptable response to the threat. The obvious one
of telling the ex-employer to “shove it” may not be sufficient in an
environment where opportunity has grossly diminished.
The retaliation becomes complex. At the micro level of the
individual within the current community, the typical response is verbal combat.
It usually begins and ends there. Citizens of the United States are adaptable, and
resilient, and no matter how poorly we are treated, we will conform to some
kind of acceptable social level because we have confidence that over time
situations will be corrected and we can go on with our lives.
This is the positive side of individualism. The average
citizen believes in himself or herself. The dysfunctional individual may
respond with criminal violence. This will give some indication as to what kind
of reprisal the corporation can expect once it accepts the darker side of free
market capitalism.
Willem Bunger, a Dutch criminologist, authored Criminality and Economic Conditions as
far back as 1916. The theme of his work was that capitalism’s dark side creates
crime. Since the by-product of ruthless competition is the exploitation of
others to maximize earnings, Bunger’s Marxist based work reasoned that it
produced a self-centered mindset which he called “egoism.” The larger social
good is ignored in the drive for economic gain. The most impoverished, and
brutalized members of society were focused on economic survival, and the
greater good of the society was outside their focus. This can be seen in the
conversations and attitudes of many workers on the middle and lower class
today, however, the focus is condemnation of those perceived as liberals, and
not the root cause of the system itself. Bunger observed that, “not
surprisingly criminal behavior [was] widespread in the working class.”[4] This
is a direct response to winning-at-all-costs approach to economic gain.
He further notes that capitalism even creates crime among the
upper levels of the economic scale of the capitalistic society. Bank fraud,
selling adulterated and sub-standard products, and large scale swindles are
committed by corporations during times of economic hardship. These illegalities
are a product of corporate groupthink, a pattern of thought characterized by
self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values
and ethics – or the lack of group values and ethics, which defines honest
business practices of value only so far as honesty does not interfere with
market advantage.[5]
Elliott Currie, like many critical observers, notes that the
harsh brand of capitalism, where there are big winners and big losers leads directly
to the United States ’
high rate of crime. This is something which most people in the United States
refuse to address in any constructive and cognitive way. The rhetoric from both
the corporations and the politicians is that crime is an individual act
committed by someone who is acting outside the law. However, even within this
rather circular logic, there is a question as to what is legal and what is
illegal.
Crime is entirely based on the predominant ethos of a given
era. One such example is the view of private property and taxation. Corporate
friendly laws tend to favor lower taxation at the expense of social programs.
Social friendly laws tend to favor interventionist social programs rather than
capitalistic gain.
What is, or is not, outlawed reflects the power structure in
society. The injurious acts of the poor are defined as crimes. There can be
little doubt that deterring crime through intervention, or through decreasing
the criminal opportunity, is a legitimate goal of society. However, the injurious
acts of the rich and powerful – such as the corporation’s selling defective
products or influencing government agencies to minimize healthcare or overlooking
blatant environmental annihilation in the name of individual responsibility
while pocketing the windfall tax relief – are not brought within the reach of
the criminal courts and law enforcement.[6]
The market economy is an amoral force. It is neither good nor
bad. It simply is the system by which we all earn our individual living. Due to
our dependence upon the corporations, the market economy robs people of their
livelihood when the corporations can make hiring choices for less elsewhere. It
fails to take care of at-risk families because they fall well under the radar
of most corporations, and it diminishes the government’s responsibility for
tending to the weakest in society by stifling any political movement to ensure
social responsibility. This is usually due to the corporations’ fear of loss of
profitability due to the perceived excessive taxation.
Elliott Currie identifies seven pathways through which the free
market economy creates the high risk of crime in the United States :
- The progressive destruction of livelihood;
- The growth of extremes of economic inequality and material deprivation;
- The withdrawal of public services and support, especially for families and children;
- The erosion of informal and communal networks of mutual support, supervision, and care;
- The spread of materialistic, neglectful, and “hard” culture;
- The unregulated marketing of the technology of violence;
- The weakening of social and political alternatives.[7]
Coercion, according to Mark Colvin in his 2000 work, Crime Coercion, points out another
pathway to crime within the dark side of the free market economy. Coercion is
“compelling someone to act in a certain way.”
Coercion not only occurs by the direct force and intimidation
but also through the pressure of impersonal economic and social forces. The
lack of economic opportunity, the abundance of dead-end jobs with little growth
and far too much disrespect for the individual, the compelling of a person to
live in economic deprivation is absolutely a form of coercion. Colvin’s studies
prove that there is a direct link between violent crime and coercion. The only
variable is how the coercion is applied. When there is a constant, chronic,
state of coercion the outcome is usually assault or murder.[8]
As far back as 1876, Ceasare Lombroso placed the emphasis of
criminal activities on biological deficiencies. Over the two and a half decades
of study he finally concluded that his biological approach only accounted for
about one third of all crime. Later studies verified that the criminally insane
accounted for a third, and that crime as a life choice accounted for
approximately another third.[9] Crime
became the only economically viable alternative to the lack of opportunity, and
economic want. This left a remaining third in a murky grey region not well
addressed in society at large. The Critical Criminology school of Thought is the
only discipline that discusses this highly volatile third type of criminal.
If one stops and asks what caused nineteen fairly affluent
Arab citizens to murder 3000 of the best and brightest workers in the United States
and commit suicide in the process, one has to conclude that it is a rebellion
against a situation which is untenable. This is supported in part by Lawrence
W. Sherman’s work in Defiance
Based on the data presented, the best conclusion that can be
drawn is that the corporations are perceived as a driving force of economic
disparity with little or no correction. The government will not address the
situation except to protect the corporations and the status-quo. The religious
community will not address the situation since they are dependent upon
contributions by the corporations. The alternative political voices are hushed
by the lack of an open and free media. Even academia is stilled in any
opposition due to its dependence of friendly corporate alliances to make
donations. No free voice exists to question the corporate influence in the
nation. Those voices who do exist do so at their own economic risk and are subject
to ridicule. The few have won. The many have lost. A few are looking for
reprisal.
The question has to be asked, do the corporations really want
to be seen as the focal point of the shaping of a national policy which
institutionalizes the dark side of the free market economy, or does the corporation
want to be seen as a responsible citizen, working with others in the community
to discover a better, more balanced approach to the overall social order which
mitigates the effects of inequity within the free market system?
This is where the discussion is picked up by Richard Quinney,
and his work in Peacemaker Criminology.[11]
The
challenge is thus to envision a society in which the scourge of racism, sexism,
and classicism are abandoned and in which the human needs of all citizens are
given the highest priority. What might our society be like … if the government
was less concerned with the gross national product (GNP) and with producing
wealth and truly committed to see that every child was born into and raised in
a healthy and caring environment?
Far fetched? Utopian? Not really. We make the choices to make
our society as light or dark as we chose it to be. No amount of school yard
bullying will alter the fact that we make our own choices about how we decided
our society will respond to the ill and the healthy within society. We can
either minimize the effect of the dark side of capitalism, or we can surrender
to the dark side and pay the price in violence.
The one thing we learned on September 11, 2001 is that the
violence is inescapable. The only thing we can do is decide how to mitigate it,
and how to respond to it without exacerbating it. Based on the events since
that fateful day, looks like we have decided to embrace the violence and
embrace the darkness.
[1]
Orend, Brian, "War", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2005/entries/war/>.
[2]
The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon On War (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2008, from
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/w038.htm
[3]
This is due to the recent radicalization of Islam expressed in militaristic Jihad the term “Muslim” is often used to
establish a differentiation between the radical factions and the wider
community
[4]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past to
Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 335-336.
[5]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 335-336.
[6]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 334.
[7]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 338.
[8]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 381.
[9]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 470.
[10]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, p. 325.
[11]
Cullen, F. T., & Agnew, R. (Eds.). (2003). Criminological Theory: Past
to Present (2nd ed.). Los Angeles :
Roxbury Publishing Company, pp. 340, 351,387.
Comments
Post a Comment