Marxist sociologists utilise Marxist concepts in order to provide a framework for understanding the cause and effects of crime and deviance in a capitalist society. These sociologists see power as being controlled by those who own and maintain the means of production. The superstructure of a capitalist society the agencies of social control, the law, politics as well as crime all reflect and serve ruling-class interests.…
One way in which Marxism is a useful theory for explaining the causes of crime is the concept of capitalism, criminogenic capitalism. Criminogenic capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class- using them for a means to an end. Crime is not confined to the working class, greed and self interest cause white collar crimes such as tax evasion and breaches of the health and safety laws. An example to highlight this can be seen from Gordon 1988 who studied the response to the anti capitalist system and found that it is apparent that it can be found in all social classes. This analysis shows that Marxism is useful to a large extent.…
Assess the usefulness of Marxist approaches to an understanding of crime and deviance (21 marks)…
Marxist theorists suggest that the workings of society can be explained by the concept of exploitation – the ruling class exploit the working class. This is the fundamental point by which Chambliss pointed to explore the relationship between class and crime. Traditional Marxists imply that the judiciary system is beneficial to the ruling class only. This dominant ideology disseminates through agencies such as, education, media, and religion which is forced onto individuals, this process is known as hegemony.…
Marxist sociologists argue that in order to understand crime and deviance, one needs to realise that it is the nature of exploitative economic systems that capitalist societies have in place that is primarily responsible. This is because the bourgeoisie and ruling classes oppress and exploit the working classes, which drives them into poverty. This causes a rift between the “haves” and the “have-nots” as the workers try to end exploitation whilst the owners of the means of production aim to keep the system to maintain profits. Most Marxists agree that crime is the result of poverty created through this system, for example people steal because they are materially deprived which is a result of low wages being paid by the ruling classes. This is a reason Marxists would give for the over-representation of the working classes in official crime statistics.…
There are numerous Marxist theories that help us to understand crime and deviance in different ways, however they are all based around the same ideas. They believe capitalism causes crime in three different ways including, selective law enforcement, criminogenic capitalism and ideological nature of the law.…
Complex societies are a relatively recent socio-political development. For the vast majority of its history, the human race has lived in hunter-gatherer groups and not in state-level civilizations. In order for a civilization to be recognized as a state level society, it must meet certain criteria. There must be centralized political power, social classes based on access to resources, occupational specialization, coercive military or police force, multiple levels of decision making, writing or complex record keeping, and urban centers controlling periphery.1 There are a variety of competing theories of the origins of state level societies. In “A Theory of the Origin of the State,” Robert Carneiro argues that warfare is the prime mechanism for the development of the state level society while it must take place under certain conditions. In “Generalized Coercion and Inequality: The Basis of State Power in the Early Civilization,” on the other hand, Bruce Trigger argues for generalized coercion where people give up their autonomy to adopt and obey a hierarchical structure. Lastly, in “Hydraulic Civilization,” Karl Wittfogel proposes a voluntaristic theory where leaders coordinate projects for obtaining water and people have to give up their individual sovereignty so that the large-scale irrigation system can be carried out. I will argue in this essay that Robert Carneiro’s warfare theory is the most applicable and fits the most evidence of the archeological and historical records of early civilizations. Let us now turn to Robert Carneiro’s ideas of environmental circumscription, social circumscription and resource concentration.…
Race and Ethnicity can play large roles in the treatment of people by society as well as individuals. In this section I will compare and contrast the experiences of the African-American population and the Canadian First Nations population using the multiple hierarchy stratification perspective. Some background research will be reviewed, and I will describe some implications for recreation and leisure.…
Marxists see society as divided into two opposed classes; a small capitalist ruling class and a majority working class. Marxists do not agree with perspectives such as Functionalism, and see the law as a reflection of a value consensus among society’s members; instead they see law and crime as arising out of the structure of capitalism and reflecting the values of ruling class ideology. In their view the structure of the capitalist society we live in today explains crime and the causes of crime.…
There are two main ways Marxist approaches to crime; traditional Marxism and Neo-Marxism. Traditional Marxists see capitalist society as divided into two classes; the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Like the functionalist’s view Marxism is a structural theory, whose function is the serve the ruling classes interests. Neo-Marxist’s share the view that capitalism is based on exploitation and inequality and the state enforces laws in the interests of capitalism, which is one of the reasons crime exists. Although, Neo-Marxists apply this with the labelling theory and they consider their view as anti-deterministic.…
Ttraditional Marxists see crime as inevitable in capitalist society because it breeds poverty, ccompetition and greed. All classes commit crime, but because the ruling class control the state, they make and enforce laws in their own interests, criminalising the working class while escaping punishment for their corporate crimes. Traditional Marxism is criticised for ignoring non-class inequalities that affect crime and for determinism whereas neo-Marxism is less deterministic and sees crime as a conscious and meaningful choice with a political move- a rebellion against capitalism.…
Contradicting this perspective, our next outlook on society is categorized by conflicting views rather than unanimity. This is referred to as conflict theory, where societal norms and standards are not equally shared or accepted among the members of society. Karl Marx is a sociologist who implemented this theory of social conflict, to which it is now coined Marxism. Marx believes that there is conflict between various groups and that society is highly structured. These structures form a hierarchical compartmentalization of groups and with that, comes…
1. The dangerous poor is about a person or a group in society who leave in poverty. Marcus Aurelius said “poverty is the mother of crime”. This means that people who commit the crime are in poverty and that what motivates them to break the law. There is an old prejudice in society such as, the poor one a dangerous lot who will stop to criminality of given opportunity. The question that government has to consider is how we can contain, control or neutralize the danger this class of people represents. The law is still prejudice.…
Crime is behaviour that breaks the law. While Marx did not write at length about crime, Marx argued that the laws were generally the codified means by which one class, the rulers, kept another class, the rest of us in check. Marxists recognise that for a society to function efficiently, social order is necessary. However,…
Karl Marx believed that society is based upon a conflict between Bourgeoisies (Ruling class, Upper class) and Proletariat (Working class). Marx believed that the ruling class were exploiting the working class.…