Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Marxism theory - Coggle Diagram
Marxism theory
Evaluation
-
Most WC crime, harms WC people, intra-class crime
- not a challenge to capitalism or redistribution of wealth, romanticisation of crime
Jock Young, moved towards realism, romanticisation of crime
The majority fo W/C do not commit crime, so cannot say inequality = crime, blanket explaination not adequate
Countries like Norway, Japan, Sweden etc, all capitalist countries but have low rates of crime, not necessarily capitalism causing crime
realist, corporate crime not an issue for W/C, worried about problems such as domestic abuse (feminist, gender blind) (in real world, thats their priority)
not all corporate crime is profit driven e.g. fiddling funds in education, abuse of patients in case homes, bullying in gov
William Chambliss
Crime in all classes:
- working class due to material disadvantages
- capitalist class due to wealth accumulation, want more & fear going bust, competitive nature of capitalism
Laws to protect private property:
serves ruling class, protects capitalism
- bank robbery get 20+ years but not this for sexual assault etc
Serves interests of capitalist class:
- labour most important factor for capitalism
- laws against unions / their strikes, helps maintain supply of labour
Examples:
- The Black Death & the vagrancy laws, pre-capitalism, lots of peasants dead so labour in demand, could get higher wages by searching for them, made law that could be arrested if found searching for the, protecting labour supply
- East African colonies and the 'poll tax', British empire wanted labour & money, locals in subsistence economy, introduced a poll tax, meant they must work to gain this cash
Non-decision making:
law makers chose to not make laws about things that benefit capitalism e.g. can't go over certain rent cost
De-labelling of corporate crime:
- crimes of powerful are not labelled like street crime
- no moral panic e.g. over false accounting
- ignore corporate crime
Neo-Marxism
-
Frank Pearce:
- ruling class don't want revolution, want to uphold hegemony (power through consent)
- laws are created to provide concessions to the working class (interest of ruling class to provide these)
Taylor, Walton and Young:
marxism with interactionism, The New Criminology
- working class can see structure, dual consciousness so conclude crimes best to deal with conditions, crime as a conscious challenge to capitalism, redistribution of wealth is what they want
fully social theory of crime:
1) deviant act
2) immediate social cause
- e.g. debt from increased rent
3) wider social cause
- overall inequality of capitalism
4) immediate societal reaction
- e.g. "lock them up!"
5) wider cause of societal reaction
- moral entrepreneurs, politicians etc
6) impat of labelling
Stuart Hall et all:
looked into capitalism in crisis (1970s)
- hegemony, power through ideology
- in a crisis, powerful class deal with worker strikes, inflation etc
Moral panics:
- media generated label around immoral ways
- 1970s, created one around muggings in street by black people
- wind rush generation, plays on racism & fear of others
- mugging is a completely made up label, doesnt exist
- these panics create a distraction & divide the working class
-scapegoating of minorities
- 1970s moral panic meant more police on the street, makes people feel more secure, reinforces idea there is a problem
- preserves hegemony of the rich
Steve Tombs
-
-
Consumers:
- epidemic of obesity, heart disease etc due to corporate crime, carcinogenic food
- cigarettes, more nicotine to cause addiction
- toxic gas emissions from factories
- pharmaceutical industry, opioids addictive yet perscribe
Employers:
- lack of health & safety regulations / violation of these
- coal mines
- estimated over 50,000 deaths due to occupational disease each year in UK e.g. asbestosis
David Gordon
Criminogenic capitalism:
something about capitalism causes high rates of crime
- inequality between classes, "dog-eat-dog" culture, focus on money
- causes utilitarian crime and non-utilitarian (due to alienation & pressures)
Selective law enforcement:
police in capitalist class not neutral
- Althusser, RSA and ISA, police & penal control WC
- focus on street WC crime, ignore crimes of wealthy
- ISA, make you think of working class crime
Laureen Snider
Deregulation of business:
we are now completely marketed & privatised
- relaxing regulations to make more money, laissez-faire approach, policies all over following this
this has allowed a proliferation in policing, corporate crime increasing due to expansion & lack of control
- 2007/8 financial crash, led to recession, caused by corporate crime (Lehman Brothers, false accounting)
- subprime mortgages due to greed
Lost taxes:
amount of money lost through tax evasion & false accounting costs economy
- over £100B lost from corporation crime each year, more than street crime
Steven Box
Media as an ISA:
- 'mystification of corporate crime'
- makes it confusing on purpose, make people switch off
- street crime more accessible, gets more attention, more sensitised
Reiman and Leighton
Rich get richer and the poor get prison:
- W/C more likely to go to prison, upper class less likely
- more money to pay for best lawyers (if caught) & accountants (to prevent being caught)