Jonathon M. Hyde
Theory in Criminology and Criminal justice: CCJ 5605-1 Greek
Due: 06/18/98
Karl Marx was not truly a criminologist per se, but instead a great thinker who tried to explain the nature of society itself. He was a theorist with practical dreams and lofty goals; in fact, "one of Marx’s lifelong objectives was the redefinition of man’s purpose and role in the world", a lofty goal indeed. ( Smulkstys, 1974: 5 ). "Marx was a thinker on a grand scale." ( Mc lellen, 1975: xii ). Many of his theories are quite applicable to the study of crime and causal explanations of it, but in general Marx thinks on a much larger scheme. "He was, in his life and in his writing, a philosopher, social scientist, political propagandist, and revolutionist all in one." ( Eddy, 1979: xii ). David Mc lellan noted that "Intellectually Marx’s influence has been as great as it has been politically", and that "There has scarcely been a discipline in which scholars working from a ‘Marxist’ point of view have not brought insights." (1975: xii ). All in all, Marx had , and continues to have, a profound effect upon many aspects of not only the world he lived in , but also the world we presently live in today.
Karl Marx was born on the 5th of May in Trier, Prussia to the former Henrietta Pressburger and her husband Heinrich Marx in the year of 1818. ( Smulkstys, 1974:11 ). Throughout the 1830s Marx studied law, philosophy and history at several universities and excelled in most all of his subjects. Marx’s family was Jewish and German, but his father decided that it would be best for the family to convert to Lutheranism the year before Marx was born to avoid the stigma of anti-Semitism that pervaded Germany at the time. Marx found the encompassing oppression of his country to be increasingly overwhelming, and felt himself having a harder and harder time compromising with the society surrounding him. The German rule in Marx’s younger years was extremely stifling and officials strictly controlled such things as places and areas deemed dangerous, political agitators, and university thought. The people of his time lacked representation in government, rights to assembly, free speech, trial by a jury of their own peers, and all publications by private individuals were strictly reviewed. (Pfohl, 1994: 433 ). Undoubtedly, the totality of the oppression forced upon Marx by the government, coupled with his radical views and his access the university thought, albeit monitored, had a tremendous impact upon his development as a thinker and ultimately his theories themselves.
In 1837 Marx joined a group referred to as the Young Heglians and began an intensive study of the philosophies of Hegel. ( Smulkstys, 1974: 14 ) "To a great extent, Marx devoted the next ten years to the study of Hegel and Hegel’s interpreters, passing from a complete acceptance of the Hegelian Philosophy to a criticism of certain interpretations of it and thence-such is his own claim-to a revolutionary transformation of it into the dialectical materialism known as ‘Marxism.’" (Sprigge, 1962: 21 ). Hegel viewed life as a "but a moment in the ‘dialectical’ unfolding of Absolute Spirit, an evolutionary like advance to a state of perfect reason." ( Pfohl, 1994: 433 ). Marx was also studying Materialist philosophers such as Feuerbach, and in fact eventually drew upon both materialist and Helgian schools of thought in the development of his own ideas. Furthermore, Fuerbach saw everything in life as the struggle for material existence. Fuerbach saw the ‘Absolute spirit’ as a false projection enacted by the organization of all things material. "Synthesizing the insights of Hegel and Fuerbach, Marx produced a new theoretical viewpoint, arguing that the central force behind history was the social production of concrete economic relations." ( Pfohl, 1994: 434 ). "Marx’s most distinctive claim is that the character of social production explains both the nature of society and the transformations it undergoes." ( Callinicos. 1989: 6 ).
Eventually Marx left the Heglian camp and received his Ph.D. from the university of Jena in 1841. He met Frederich Engels in 1842 who, unbeknownst to Marx at the time, would become his lifelong friend, funding agent, and collaborator. ( Smulkstys, 1974: 11 ). Marx was never exceedingly wealthy, and "Earning an income Marx could never regard as the first task of man", so Engel’s financial assistance was essential to helping Marx to get his ideas off of the ground. ( Sprigge, 1962: 44 ). Marx married Jenny Von Westphalen and relocated to Paris in 1843, in the mean time writing critiques of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. ( Mc lellen, 1975: 01 ). He then edited papers, moved to Belgium, wrote The German Ideology, and joined the Communist league in 1847. In 1848 he was commissioned to write the Communist Manifesto, and then he moved back to Germany, where conditions were become a bit less stringent, to edit a paper. Soon enough though , he became the target of the government animosity and fled to London in 1849 where he wrote drafts of two of his most famous works , Das Capital and Wage labor. While in London he continued writing books and articles. In 1862 he published Theories of Surplus Value, and eventually published the first volume of Das Captial in 1867. ( Mc lellen, 1975: 01 ). From then on Marx began work on the second and third volumes of Das Capital and published numerous critiques, articles, and books, until his health began to deteriorate in 1879 and he finally died in 1883. ( Smulkstys, 1974: 14 ).
It has been said that "Marx never identifies his own ideas as ‘Marxism’" and that "Claims that Marxism represents a scientific ideology or a proletarian ideology of revolution are at odds with his own use of the term." ( Carver, 1987: 91 ). Furthermore, John Estler pointed out that "Marx’s theory of social structure and historical change has to be reconstructed from a number of texts whose nature and purpose differ widely" in the introduction to his book Marx: a Reader. ( 1986: 170 ). One can see that construction of, or even the simplification of, Marxist thought into a single theory of the nature of man is a daunting task. When one takes into account that Marx was a theorist on a grand scale, pulling out or limiting his work to crime or deviance adds another layer of difficulty to the task at hand. At the same time, Marxist thought has clear implications as to the nature and causes of crime. Because Marx, in this author’s opinion, formed the groundwork for the application of conflict theory in the social sciences, he surely deserves attention from criminology as a discipline.
As stated previously, Marx felt that the character of social production explained not only the nature of the society but the changes that the society undergoes as well. He compares and contrasts 2 distinct parts of production, which he refers to as the "forces" and the ‘relations" of production. The productive forces consist of ( at a minimum) the material parts of production. These include labor and the means to produce it such as technological devices, private property, and real property. The production relations encompass ( again, at a minimum) the real control over the forces by different groups and minorities, and the resulting exploitation that the majority encounters when the minority exerts enough control over the rest of society that forces them to work not only for their dependants and themselves, but for the minority controlling them as well, which creates what Marx refers to as "Surplus Labor." According to Pfohl, this surplus value of labor theory states that "the exploitive dynamics of capitalist society revolve around the theft of workers’ ‘unpaid labor’ by those who own and/or control the dominant modes of economic production." ( 1994: 434 ). Surplus Labor causes some to benefit while others deteriorate; this in turn gives rise to a class structure, and the antagonistic goals of the exploited and those who exploit them lead, again in turn, to eventual class struggle. ( Callinicos, 1989: 06) One could clearly see how the ensuing frustration would lead to friction between the classes. This friction could easily take the form of crime. This could be out of frustration as in an assault upon a well-dressed man by a poor man, or out of need, as in the theft of food for one’s family due to the lack of adequate pay or a job at all. Eventually, the crime could develop into episodic riots, and given time even to total revolution. Revolution is always a crime up until the point in which the revolution becomes successful. When the revolutionists succeed in overthrowing the state, they gain the power to define what crime is, and in many cases the former government’s "laws" are deemed crimes themselves! Another critical aspect of Marxian thought is the idea of fetishization of commodities. Pfohl explains this as "forced to sell their labor like so many commodities on the market, workers would assume a mystified view of themselves and their relations to others, as if these relations were ‘naturally’ governed by the logic of calculative economic exchange." ( 1995: 434 ). Crime could be construed from this theory as kind of a demoralization of the general populous. Contemporary criminologists John Irwin and James Austin have noted "crime has incurred another profound cost: the increase in the general vindictiveness in our society" and that "Moreover, seeking vengeance is a pursuit that brings more frustration than satisfaction; it has not only been an obstacle in solving many social problems and in developing cooperative, communal attitudes (the lack of which are one of the important causes of the crime problem), but is in itself a producer of excessive amounts of anxiety and frustration." ( 1994: 169 ). "In other words, individuals in society start to see themselves and others as merely commodities to be used. This explanation could go a long way in helping us understand white-collar crime, especially when the crimes are human lives for profit, as in the classic Ford Pinto lawsuit.
Jeffery Reiman maintains that "Marxists characteristically regard exploitation, and consequently capitalism, as unjust or immoral." ( 1995: 213 ). H e thinks that there are two ways Marxists reach a condemnation of capitalism: The "alienation charge" and the "slavery/maldistribution charge." ( 1995: 214 ). The alienation charge stems from the notion that in capitalism, each person’s well being is in conflict with others. Those who take this view see the criminal justice system as "a means to regulate this antagonism of interests." Furthermore Reiman sees the same institution that regulates criminal guilt as the institution that breeds the criminality in the first place. Marx himself stated that "punishment is nothing but a means of society to defend itself against the infraction of its vital conditions, whatever may be their character." ( Jacoby, 1994: 95 ). In some sense this removes total guilt from the criminal for the crimes that they commit, due to the fact that criminals are wrongly punished for actions caused by the system that is condemning them in the first place!. ( 1995: 214-215). The slavery/maldistribution charge is explained as "the emphasis is on the wrongness or coerciveness of private ownership as a means of production." ( Reiman 1995: 215). Criminals are seen as victims of prior crimes by the government’s instituting capitalism and private property. This institution is seen as a form of theft or coercive device to obtain labor. Criminals are then seen as "reactors" to crimes already committed against them by the system labeling them criminals. Logically, Marx argued, "is there not necessity for deeply reflecting upon an alteration of the system that breeds these crimes, instead of glorifying the hangman who executes a lot of criminals only to make room for new ones?" ( Jacoby, 1995: 95 ).
Karl Marx believed that people could work together to benefit one another in a society that put the needs of the society first, not the needs of the individual, and that if this were accomplished, the individual would benefit more in the long run. W. H. C. Eddy thought that Marx "began with a conception of man as essentially or potentially autonomous, self determined, being capable of molding his character, his activities, and the society in which he lived in such a way as to give maximum expression to his potentialities." ( 1979: ix ). Karl Marx’s guiding principle in his design of the perfect society in which to live, or Marxist Socialism / Communism, as it came to be known, can be characterized as "From each according to his abilities , to each according to his needs" ( Lee, 1998: 01 ). By this he means that if a person is gifted in a particular area, be it intelligence or physical ability, than that person should find an occupation accordingly. If a person is hindered in a particular area, the converse applies, for example, a weak man wouldn’t toil in the fields and a mentally handicapped person wouldn’t conduct brain surgery. Furthermore, if a family has great need due to an illness or large numbers of children, then the family should receive what they need not based upon their occupational strengths. Again conversely, a healthy single bachelor living alone wouldn’t receive large amounts of money for his work, no matter how many more bails of fruit that he could lift than his neighbor was able to.
Marx felt that this society would and needed to develop from Capitalism so that the interests of the people would be the driving forces in the economy and not the wants and desires of the few that control the means of production. Theoretically, crimes easily explained by Marxian theory, such as theft, would be drastically reduced in this utopian society as well because the frustration of "working for more than you use" would dissipate. David Matza and David Wellman state in their article "The Ordeal of Consciousness" that "In the Marxist imagination, working class consciousness produces a new social organization where the interests of the actual producers dominate the system." ( 1980: 01 ). So not only would the ideal society proposed by Marx alter the structure, but the consciousness of the people as well. This altered consciousness would undoubtedly remedy crimes caused by the fetishization of commodities spoken of earlier by raising the consciousness of society at large and causing them to view their peers as human beings and not simply as commodities to be exploited.
Even though some, such as Chronis Polychroniou and Harry R. Targ feel that "there can be no doubt that Marxism is undergoing one of the most severe crises in the entire history of the twentieth century", Marxism is alive in well in several contemporary theories. Jeffrey Reiman’s Phyrrhic Defeat theory fits in nicely with the majority of Marxian thought regarding crime. He argues that "on the whole, most of the system’s practices make more sense if we look at them as ingredients in an attempt to maintain rather than reduce crime!" and that the criminal justice system "fails to reduce crime while making it look as if crime is the work of the poor." ( 1995: 04 ). Reiman’s theory differs from Marxian criminology in that most Marxian theories find the system to have a "repressive" function where Reiman’s theory focuses on the system’s ideological function. In other words, where Marx finds the system successfully repressing the poor, Reiman finds the system serving the powerful by failing to reduce crime. (1995: 07 ).
My own theory of crime is dramatically influenced by Marx and could even be considered to be and updated Marxist theory. I think the rich oppress the poor through the criminal justice system, but I differ from Marx on a key area; where Marx finds two classes, I see three or more. There is a distinct upper, middle, and lower class structure in the United States. I find that the upper classes must not only give the middle class just enough to keep them content, but they do so not out of their own pocket, but from the exploitation of the lower class. Another key point is that the upper class must keep the middle class focused on the crimes of the lower class and not those of the upper class, otherwise the middle class would join with the lower class and overthrow the upper class. The lower class would do this themselves but they do not have the resources that the middle class does; the upper class knows this and exploits that fact.
Finally, James Davies, a critic of Marx, found fault in the Marxian theory of revolution and modified it. According to Marx, societal development is littered with conflicts between classes that, when the come to a head, end in a change from a revolt of one of the classes. Marx felt that if people where treated badly enough for a long period of time that a revolution would occur. ( Giddens, 1996: 365 ). Davies pointed out periods in historical development where people lived in tremendous poverty but never rose up in revolt or protest. Revolution was more likely to occur, according to Davies, when the poor experience an improvement in living conditions. This is because when conditions start to rise, so do the expectations of the people that they are rising for. "Thus it is not absolute poverty that leads to protest" as Marx would assert, but "’relative depravation’- the discrepancy between the lives people are forced to lead and what they think could be realistically achieved." ( Giddens, 1996: 365 ). In conclusion, Karl Marx was a great thinker who illuminated many areas of thought for many disciplines, and he is as relevant today as he was when he was first constructing his theories.
Bibliography