Marxist Theory, Law and the Economy - Essay Example

Marxist Theory, Law and the Economy According to Marxist theory, capitalism exploits the working es. Escalating crime is one consequence as the poverty-stricken are driven to anti-social behavior in an effort to support their basic needs or as a hostile act of opposition to the present distribution of the wealth system. In 1867, Karl Marx said, “There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery, and increases in crime even more than its numbers.”1 This discussion will examine the ways in which Marxist Theory establishes a relationship between law and the economy focusing on Class Instrumental Theory and Structural Marxism models. From the Instrumentalist point of view, capitalism and its effects on the working class is dependent upon the ruling class’ distribution of economic power. The economic base is understood to be accountable for determining all other social institutions such as criminal law, religion and the media. The media conveys mass communications that help maintain capitalism and historical documents assume that the wisdom of any time period is generally held by the ruling class. Business owners, the rich and the government, including the judicial system, control cultural structures to maintain the status quo which enables them to retain an element of supremacy. Thus, Capitalists’ power depends on the making and enforcement of the prevailing law. Instrumentalists assert, however, that the capitalist state must be relatively autonomous in order to best serve a capitalist society. “Its relative independence makes it possible for the state to play its class role in an approximately flexible manner.  If it really was a simple instrument of the ruling class, it would be fatally inhibited in the performance of its role.  Its agents absolutely need a measure of freedom in deciding how best to serve the existing social order.”2 Instrumentalists contend that the state works as an intentional and planned instrument for the supremacy over society: “Instrumental exercise of power by people in strategic positions who either manipulate state politics directly (direct instrumentality) or through the exercise of pressure on the state (indirect instrumentality).”3 While Marxist theorists agree that capitalism provides for the well-being of the social elite by the exploitation of the working class, some differ in their rationalizations of how a capitalist nation accomplishes this.  Instrumental Marxism views law as a tool of the ruling class while Structural Marxism denies deliberate intention to the ruling class and believes it rules by ideas. Structuralists, such as Nicos Poulantzas, espouses that the capitalist class is internally divided therefore the state guards capitalist interests on behalf of all capitalists and thus the state is autonomous.4 Instrumentalists’, such as Ralph Miliband, conception is that “the state is an instrument of the capitalist class as a whole and this class contains fractions thus it has relative autonomy from the ruling class.”5 In his book, The State in Capitalist Society, Miliband argues that “the state cannot reform capitalism because it remains as an organ of class rule, captured and dominated by the ruling class.”6 A Structuralist Marxist point of view would argue that the state can not be understood simply from empiricist observations of instrumental exercises of control by the ruling class. They stress that social class structures and the states relationship must be taken as separate systems of regular connections. They also insist that those managing the state organisations are of little or no importance to the character of the state in a capitalist society.  Instead, they suggest that the fact that the state serves the capitalist class is only slightly significant and coincidental.  From the Structuralist perspective, control is based on ideological control that the workers only accept management through a lengthy, natural process of socialisation where they come to accept the leadership of authoritarian groups as legitimate. This control is not forced upon them but rather they are won over and work within a system they believe to be fair. Conventional British Instrumental Marxism understandings of the State as an institution colonised by the ruling class conflict but Structuralist Marxist conceptualizes the State as a structure offering reproductive functions for capitalism regardless of class membership. Instrumental Marxism considers the capitalist state an instrument of the ruling class and offers another view of the state which takes into account the credibility of relative state autonomy.  “The state is a condensation of class-based relations and cannot be independent; it can only be relatively autonomous, and as such is given the capacity to act independently of individual capitalists while remaining unavoidably the state of the owning ruling class.”7 Friedrich Engels also observed that “by way of exception, however, periods occur in which the warring classes balance each other so nearly that the state power, as ostensible mediator, acquires, for the moment, a certain degree of independence of both.”8 Marx and Engels were aware that capitalist states may assume different, contrasted forms and that some states may be more autonomous than others but they continued to consider them class states. Although neither Marx nor Engels nor other Marxist theorists discussed crime or criminal justice at length, Marx did comment that crime provides for employment. “The criminal produces the whole of the police and of criminal justice, constables, judges, hangman, juries, etc.”9 The Marxist perspective requires an understanding of the critical relationship between the economic system and the formation of classes and the relationship between those classes. “First and foremost, Marx is saying that any economic system will tend to be supported by super-structural factors such as law, politics, education, and consciousness.”10 In a capitalist system, laws embedded in the existing societal economic system are enacted to protect private property as individual ownership of land and possessions is principal. Because a developing capitalist society creates class conflict, a progressive degree of acts will be defined as criminal. “Criminal law, then, is not a reflection of consensus or custom, as in the functionalist view, but is a set of rules laid down by the state in the interests of the ruling class and resulting from the conflicts inherent in class-structured society.”11 Marxist criminologists are not in total agreement on the extent that the law is embedded in the economic system. Instrumentalist Marxists view the law as merely a device used by those in authority to promote their own economic and political agendas. Other Marxist thought, however, takes a structural perspective. They view the law as a system of rules and regulations that is determined by the economic system, that reinforces the economic and political power of the privileged but that also grows to have some degree of autonomy, as opposed to the overly detrimental view of instrumentalists. “Structuralist Marxists wish to explore ways in which law and criminal justice, as forms of social control, has been used to contain class struggle and maintain class divisions at different times and in different societies.”12 The base argument for the Structuralist group is “law is not exclusively an instrument of the ruling class, but it is designed to maintain the long term interests of capital.”13 This is due, in part, to the fact that those who make, enforce and interpret laws are virtually all members of the upper class and that social control motivates people to obey the law but that they do not need any special motivation to violate the law. This occurs naturally in the absence of any social controls. Both Instrumental and Structural Marxists theorists agree that those in power who would control society assume everyone would violate the law if they could get away with it. One of the major proposals of critical Marxist criminology is that “criminal definitions are formulated according to the interests of those segments of society which have the power to translate their interests into public policy.”14 In addition to the connection between a society’s economic system and its legal establishments, they question the conception of what a state constitutes to be a crime. “Acceptance of the legal definition entails deference to the state, which in their view is biased in favor of those holding positions of power and authority.”15 The definition of criminal “varies according to the extent to which the behaviors of the powerless conflict with the interests of the power segments.”16 The lower classes are more likely to be identified as a criminal because the control of that marker lies with the middle-to-upper class, “who protect themselves from such labels by the laws they select to make and enforce. Further, as capitalism expands so will penal law in its efforts to ‘coerce the proletariat into submission’.”17 The ‘conflict’ or Instrumental Marxists argue that traditional criminologists should be interested not only in behaviors set by criminal law but also those behaviors that result in the infringement and abuse of human rights by those in the ruling class. The media draws attention to proletariat criminal activity while the government enacts criminal laws to punish those that caused no harm to person or property. Marxists suggest “the focus on common crimes and common criminals serves ideological purposes that turn public attention from crimes committed by the ruling class to crimes committed by the powerless.”18 Marxist theorists are also interested in governmental or state crime, white-collar crime, or “crime in the suites,” as it is often called “crimes of capital.” Crimes of capital are “Socially injurious acts that arise from the ownership or management of capital or from occupancy of positions of trust in institutions designed to facilitate the accumulation of capital.”19 Those in Government make laws under the pretext of fighting crime for public safety’s sake but in the interest of capitalistic inspired greed, many times create laws to enhance and protect their own individual economic interests over those of and at the expense of the working class. Those of influential position and economic status control a justice system that ensures that they will remain in the small percentage of those that have by oppressing those that have not with threats of punishment for varying types of social behavior or activities. Instrumentalist Marxists believe that this is a terrorist act by the upper class and is itself criminal behavior that should be duly punished much the same as other crimes. However, as the government labels criminals, it also labels terrorists and would never apply the term to itself. As government bodies have complete control if the judicial process, these crimes against humanity will never be punished.20 Included in their critique of capitalism, Instrumentalist Marxist are also critical of the misuse of the criminal justice system as it operates in the most industrialized countries. They would suggest that this institution which deals with processing and adjudicating criminals reinforces existing patterns of ownership but does not affect the method of production or redistribute ownership more equitably. This being the case, the criminal justice system is not in a position to solve the problems inherent in capitalism, problems which create criminal behavior and, perhaps more importantly, the criminalization of certain forms of behavior by the ruling class. The goal of the criminal justice system in a capitalist society structure is not to abolish or even considerably reduce crime, but to project the impression that the poor constitute a threat. “Punishing individuals will not affect rates of criminal behavior, nor will it correct the social conditions which caused criminal behavior in the first place. By focusing attention on individual criminals, courts present us with the image of a person who needs correcting instead of a social system which needs reorganization.”21 Punishment, then, “serves many ideological functions, reinforcing certain beliefs about the content of appropriate behavior patterns. By imprisoning certain types of people, especially lower class, capitalist forms of punishment create the belief that there is a ‘class of criminals’ who should be feared because they might exhibit criminal behavior.”22 Instrumental Marxist criminologists believe that only revolutionary change can alter the capitalist economic, political, and social arrangements. Structuralists, on the other hand believe that social structures such as the imposition and implementation of criminal laws will evolve naturally and that the Instrumental philosophy “categorically excludes gradual or small-scale change; compromises by definition are eliminated.”23 Instrumentalism asserts that the thinking that evolutionary and gradual criminal justice reforms do not address the real problems, “they only serve to make life more palatable under the capitalist system. They therefore pacify the exploited masses and strengthen the capitalist system.”24 While instrumental Marxist criminology theory does not condone ‘street crime,’ most directed against the economically disadvantaged, it “challenges a legal conception and criminal justice system response which does not deal with the most harmful crimes effectively, namely those committed in the name of the state or by the economic elite.”25 Studies have found that personal crimes such as assaults are generally committed against members of the same social class which re-enforces the Instrumentalist idea that victims of crime “are pursued by those who are already brutalized by the conditions of capitalism. These actions occur in immediate situations that are themselves the result of more basic accommodations to capitalism.”26 Marxists of all types agree that economic factors play a significant role in criminal activity patterns and the law’s legislative and judicial reaction to this. Another point of agreement is to the punishment of consensual crime or crimes that cause ho harm to property or to person. The particular morals of those in the ruling class are imposed on the poor further substantiating their control. Crimes against property are a direct result of this capitalism divergence of wealth but are of small consequence when put in perspective. Society as a whole loses more from government waste and corruption, ownership practices of consumer deception and corporate monopolies price-fixing techniques than from all of the other property crimes combined.27 Marxist economic theorists are divided into two main ideologies. The instrumentalists view the political state as strictly an instrument of the capitalist state. Structuralists, by contrast, view the political state as having some relative natural autonomy. Structural-Marxism suggests that economic conditions affect criminal behavior but do not make the link between class and capitalistic induced anti-social behavior as do the Instrumentalists. While Structuralists do not believe that class conflict exists in regard to criminal injustices, they must concede that there is a general public perception that it indeed does as the Instrumentalists argue. In most of today’s industrialized societies, Capitalism is the driving force of the global economy alongside Marxist ideals which have long been incorporated into these societal structures, labour unions for example, and continue to be weaved into the capitalist world in the form of progressively less intrusive laws. Perhaps this marriage of conflicting philosophies in many of today’s industrialized nations exists because of conflict itself. Marx and Engels both stress that conflict is the driving force of all economic, political and social life. Capitalism spawns fierce competition which plays to the basic human instincts of survival itself. Some suggest the need to acquire capital is an inherent component of human behavior but it is the conflict, the competition for monetary gain that feeds the basic instincts. It is the journey that humans desire, not the goal for after every goal is reached, a person is instinctually bound to immediately set another. For this very human reason, we constantly seek conflict, thus both capitalism and Marxism within the same economic system are compatible to our needs and desires. Proponents of capitalism would argue that capitalism is a more effective means of generating and redistributing wealth than socialism or communism but would also agree that governments and those of the ruling class in any economic or social system can destroy itself by excessive greed, corruption and the power obsessed oppression of a class of people. Marxism’s economic and social theories are experiencing a seemingly growing acceptance today within the capitalist organisation. Todays ruling class decries Marxist views as ‘utopian’ as if the lawlessness, injustice and economic problems created by capitalism were the premier form of social order to which humanity could ever hope to be. Perhaps a portion of each method and variations of that method is the answer to the delicate balance of economy and law to society’s formation. To what degree society will benefit from limitations, or opportunities brought by those of the ruling class is to be determined by each society through various points of history. Footnotes 1 Marx, K. (1961). Capital. (Vol. 1). Trans. S. Moore and E. Aveling. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. 2 Miliband, R. (1977). Marxism and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 87. 3 Gold, D.A. et al. (1975). “Recent Developments in Marxist Theory of the State.” Monthly Review. Vol. 27, I. 5, p. 29. 4 Poulantzas, N. (1969). “The Problem of the Capitalist State.” New Left Review. p. 58. 5 Miliband, R. (1973) “Poulantzas and the Capitalist State.” New Left Review. p. 82. 6 Poulantzas, (1969), p. 58. 7 McLellan, D.  (1977).  Karl Marx: Selected Writings.  London: Oxford Press, p. 541. 8 Engels, F.  (1972).  The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.  New York: International Publishers, pp. 160-61. 9 Chambliss, W., & Mankoff, M. (Eds.). (1976). Whose Law? What Order? A Conflict Approach to Criminology. New York: John Wiley and Sons, p. 6. 10 Lynch, M., & Groves, W. B. (1989). A Primer in Radical Criminology (2nd Ed.). New York: Harrow and Heston, p.13. 11 Chambliss & Mankoff, (1976), p. 6. 12 Lynch & Groves, (1989), pp. 5-6. 13 Ibid, p. 26. 14 Quinney, R. (2000). Bearing Witness to Crime and Social Justice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, p. 76. 15 Lynch & Groves, (1989), p. 31. 16 Quinney, (2000), p. 77. 17 Chambliss & Mankoff, (1976), p. 8. 18 Lynch & Groves, (1989), p. 34. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, p. 39. 21 Ibid, p. 99. 22 Ibid, p. 117. 23 Shichor, D. (1980). “Some Problems of Credibility in Radical Criminology.” Radical Criminology: The Coming Crises. J. Inciardi (Ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing, p. 197. 24 Ibid. 25 Friedrichs, D. (1980). “Radical Criminology in the United States: An Interpretive Understanding.” Radical Criminology: The Coming Crises. J. Inciardi (Ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing, p. 50. 26 Quinney, (2000), p. 165. 27 Reiman, J. (1998). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. References Chambliss, W., & Mankoff, M. (Eds.). (1976). Whose Law? What Order? A Conflict Approach to Criminology. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Engels, F.  (1972).  The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.  New York: International Publishers. Friedrichs, D. (1980). “Radical Criminology in the United States: An Interpretive Understanding.” Radical Criminology: The Coming Crises. J. Inciardi (Ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing. Gold, D.A. et al. (1975). “Recent Developments in Marxist Theory of the State.” Monthly Review. Vol. 27, I. 5, pp. 29-43; (6), 36-51. Lynch, M., & Groves, W. B. (1989). A Primer in Radical Criminology (2nd Ed.). New York: Harrow and Heston. Marx, K. (1961). Capital. (Vol. 1). Trans. S. Moore and E. Aveling. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. McLellan, D.  (1977).  Karl Marx: Selected Writings.  London: Oxford Press. Miliband, R. (1973) “Poulantzas and the Capitalist State.” New Left Review. Miliband, R. (1977). Marxism and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Poulantzas, N. (1969). “The Problem of the Capitalist State.” New Left Review. Quinney, R. (2000). Bearing Witness to Crime and Social Justice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Reiman, J. (1998). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Shichor, D. (1980). “Some Problems of Credibility in Radical Criminology.” Radical Criminology: The Coming Crises. J. Inciardi (Ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing. Read More