Criminality and economic conditionsBonger, Willem Adriaan
General
Criminality and economic conditions
Bonger, Willem Adriaan
Crime -- Economic aspects
—My criticism of what has gone before will be limited to some principal
points only.
First. The author dodges the question when he includes under economic
conditions poverty only, and this in the very limited sense of the lack
of the absolute necessities. He who writes upon the connection between
crime and economic conditions must analyze the whole present economic
system, and not stop with one of the consequences of that system, the
poverty in which the proletarians find themselves. Consequently
Garofalo’s whole argument, tending to show that the bourgeoisie have a
great part in the crimes against property, is beside the mark, for
capitalism results in great uncertainty of existence for the
bourgeoisie also. It is then quite comprehensible that this class
should be guilty of crimes of this kind. According to Fornasari di
Verce, however, the Italian statistics show that the well-to-do class
take less part in crime than the poor. According to him 13% of all
those convicted in 1887 were well-to-do, a class which, roughly
speaking, forms 40% of the whole population. (See also Colajanni, “La
Sociologia Criminale”, II, pp. 536 ff.)
In consequence of this arbitrary restriction of the subject the
author’s remarks are of little value. But aside from this there are
still serious charges to be made against his manner of treating the
subject.
Second. The assertion of Garofalo that in general in our present
society he who wishes to work can find work, is not worth combating in
a serious book. To say that machinery does not every day make some
workers unnecessary, that there are no industrial crises causing an
enormous amount of involuntary unemployment, is conclusive proof that
one does not know the present mode of production. The existence of a
group of the population, the so-called lower proletariat
(“bas-prolétariat”, “Lumpen-proletariat”) cannot be a natural
phenomenon, since it has not been always and everywhere present; it is
strictly bound up with certain modes of production.
Third. As I have had occasion to show already in more than one place,
the increase of crimes against persons during periods of prosperity has
a very great, though indirect, connection with economic conditions.
Fourth. That poverty in the strict sense of the word is not the sole
cause of economic criminality, that cupidity plays also an important
rôle, I do not wish to deny. Only, this cupidity is not an innate
quality of man, present everywhere and always, but is awakened only
under certain economic conditions. This is especially the case in our
present society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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