Re: [Marxism] query on Marxism and the law

["Ghulam Mustafa Lakho" <gmlakho.advocate@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/marx.htm

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
Smulkstys, Julius. (1974). Karl Marx. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc.
Carver, Terell. (1987). A Marx Dictionary. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books.
Mc lellan, David. (1975). Karl Marx. New York: The Viking Press Inc.
Sprigge, C. J. S. (1962). Karl Marx. New York: Collier Books.
Eddy, W. H. C. (1979). Understanding Marxism: An Approach Through
Dialogue. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Limited.
Marx, Karl. (1862). Theories of Surplus Value. In Jon Elster (ed.).
Karl Marx: A Reader. (pp. 312-332). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Pfohl, Stephen. (1994). Images of Deviance and Social Control: A
Sociological History; 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.
Marx, Karl. (1994). Class Conflict and Law. In Joseph E. Jacoby (ed.).
In Classics of Criminology; 2nd Ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland
Press Inc.
Giddens Anthony. (1996). Introduction to Sociology; 2nd Ed. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company.
Harry R. Targ. (1996). Introduction. In Chronis Polychroniou and Harry
R. Targ (eds.). Marxism today: Essays on Capitolism, Socialism, and
Stratagies for Social Change. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Alex Callinicos. (1989). Preface. In Alex Callinicos (ed.). Marxist
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Irwin, John & Austin, James. (1994). It's About Time: America's
Imprisonment Binge. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Reiman, Jeffrey. (1995). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison:
Ideology, Crime and Criminal Justice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Matza, David and Wellman, David. (1980). "The Ordeal of
Consciousness". Theory and Society; 9 (1980) 1-27.
Lee, Bill. [AKA "BilLee"] Quotes. [World Wide Web Document]. URL:
http://www.cp-tel.net/miller/BilLee/quotes/Marx.html
Smulkstys, Julius. (1974). Karl Marx. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc.
Carver, Terell. (1987). A Marx Dictionary. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books.
Mc lellan, David. (1975). Karl Marx. New York: The Viking Press Inc.
Sprigge, C. J. S. (1962). Karl Marx. New York: Collier Books.
Eddy, W. H. C. (1979). Understanding Marxism: An Approach Through
Dialogue. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Limited.
Marx, Karl. (1862). Theories of Surplus Value. In Jon Elster (ed.).
Karl Marx: A Reader. (pp. 312-332). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Pfohl, Stephen. (1994). Images of Deviance and Social Control: A
Sociological History; 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.
Marx, Karl. (1994). Class Conflict and Law. In Joseph E. Jacoby (ed.).
In Classics of Criminology; 2nd Ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland
Press Inc.
Giddens Anthony. (1996). Introduction to Sociology; 2nd Ed. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company.
Harry R. Targ. (1996). Introduction. In Chronis Polychroniou and Harry
R. Targ (eds.). Marxism today: Essays on Capitolism, Socialism, and
Stratagies for Social Change. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Alex Callinicos. (1989). Preface. In Alex Callinicos (ed.). Marxist
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Irwin, John & Austin, James. (1994). It's About Time: America's
Imprisonment Binge. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Reiman, Jeffrey. (1995). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison:
Ideology, Crime and Criminal Justice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Matza, David and Wellman, David. (1980). "The Ordeal of
Consciousness". Theory and Society; 9 (1980) 1-27.
Lee, Bill. [AKA "BilLee"] Quotes. [World Wide Web Document]. URL:
http://www.cp-tel.net/miller/BilLee/quotes/Marx.html



On 6/28/06, Austin, Andrew <austina@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> For a comprehensive introduction to Marxism and the law read David F.
> Greenberg's Crime and Capitalism: Readings in Marxist Criminology.  See
> in particular parts 1 and 3.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect
> Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 2:35 PM
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Marxism] query on Marxism and the law
>
> Hi Louis,
>
> Can you recommend anything good on Marxism and the law?  Either exegesis
> or actual works employing Marxist analysis.
>
> ________________________________________________
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