Written by Leo Ghorishi
In order to explore and discuss ruling class crime we have to investigate the sociological theory of conflict and marxism. Marx was a famous philosopher in the criminogenic and legal field, the son of a successful jewish lawyer. Following in his fathers footsteps, Karl Marx studied law at Bonn and Berlin where he was introduced to the ideas of Hegel and Feurbach– two leading German philosophers.
Marx, Crime and Ideology
According to Marx, the rule of law exists to safeguard the bourgeoisie’s interests (the rich). He believed the bourgeoisie had to govern conflict. Because conflict causes social change, the powerful had to figure out how to control and limit it. Ideologically, inequity must be justified. Crime, according to Marx, is a reaction to systemic constraints like poverty. The ruling class’s ideology is the prevailing ideology in society, ensuring that other ideas are not heard, marginalised, or ignored. (For example, the capitalist system is rarely questioned). Marxism is known as conflict consensus structuralism, while functionalism is known as consensus structuralism. People follow the law because they have been socialised to believe this is right and this is wrong, according to Marxist values.
It’s all about the Bourgeoisie!
The bourgeoisie wields power, according to Marxist criminologists, and laws are a manifestation of bourgeois ideology. The bourgeoisie’s interests are served by the legal system and the police. These institutions are used to keep people in a condition of false awareness, control the masses, and prevent revolt.
Because advertisement is a sort of intellectual power, the bourgeoisie uses power derived from economic ownership to regulate how and what people believe about the social world. This can be seen in the neo-marxist beliefs on the impact of advertisement on society. In the form of advertising and other platforms, economic power has the ability to define -ideologically- what should and shouldn’t be idealised.
You can summarise Marx criminology and ruling class crime into four points;
- Capitalism is criminogenic, meaning that the capitalist system encourages criminal behaviour.
- The law is made by the capitalist elite and tends to work in their interests.
- All classes in society, not just the working classes, commit crime, and the crimes of the capitalist class are more costly than street crime.
- The state practices selective law enforcement.
To elaborate the criminal justice system mainly concerns itself with policing and punishing the marginalized, not the wealthy, and this forms ideological functions for the elite classes. The ideological functions of selective law enforcement ignores the fact that it is criminogenic capitalism which causes crime in the first place. The imprisonment of lower social classes neutralises opposition to the system. It also masks the worst cases of poverty out of sight to the public, illustrating to them, once again, a false consciousness.
Money, Money, Money
There is enormous competitive pressure in a capitalist society to make money, to be more successful, and to generate more profit. Why?
In a competitive economy, this is the only way to secure existence. In this environment, breaching the law may appear minor in comparison to the pressures to succeed and the pressures to break the law that affect everyone from the investment banker to the unemployed gang member (stereotypical roles of classes imposed upon us by society).
Marxists associate white-collar crime with individual white-collar crimes like fraud. It also focuses on corporate crime, which includes institutional crime, such as embezzlement. Negligence in terms of health and safety. The elite’s atrocities are frequently unpunished (Tombs and Whyte).
Marxists Criminologists and the Capitalist System
There are several Marxist theories on crime which explore the capitalist system in depth. Snider ( 1993) points out that the government is hesitant to establish rules restricting enterprises, and Chambliss (1973) highlights that private property is at the center of the capitalist system. These are instances of how the elite shape the law in their own interests. State-sponsored harm is rarely often labeled as criminal, for example; colonialism, and a slew of wars. Furthermore, the economic consequences of corporate criminality outweigh the costs of street crime.
Here’s a mind map that elaborates on Marxist Theories of Crime:
Marxist criminologists believe that the capitalist system’s volume pervades the rest of our civilization. When you think about it, burglary, robbery, and thievery all stem from personal gain, originating from the goals of economic criminals. Some may argue that corporate crime will exist even in non-capitalist societies. This can be linked to the functionalist theory, which states that all factors in society, such as industrial industries, media, religion, politics, and crime, are fundamental pillars that help to stabilise and balance a society. You may even claim that corporate criminality causes greater emotional harm than street crime.
Is Crime the result of a faulty system?
While Marx wrote little about crime, his general analysis yielded a number of influential propositions, including how crime is caused by fundamental conflicts in the social order, not by moral or biological defects. Crime is an unavoidable feature of existing capitalist societies arising from inequalities; and working-class crime is the result of demoralisation caused by labor exploitation. Crimes like theft, arson, and sabotage can also be seen as a form of protest and
revolt against the bourgeois system of property ownership and control in some ways.
